different between nag vs rail

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?næ?/
• (North American also) IPA^(key): /ne??/, IPA^(key): /n??/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Etymology 1

From Middle English nagge, cognate with Dutch negge.

Noun

nag (plural nags)

1. A small horse; a pony.
3. An old, useless horse.

   Synonyms: (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal, archaic) aver, dobbin, hack, jade, plug
4. (obsolete, derogatory) A paramour.
   • 1598, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, III. x. 11:

     Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt – Whom leprosy o'ertake!

Coordinate terms

• (old useless horse): bum (racing)

Translations

Etymology 2

Probably from a North Germanic source; compare Swedish nagga (“to gnaw, grumble”), Danish nage, Icelandic nagga (“to complain”).

Verb

nag (third-person singular simple present nags, present participle nagging, simple past and past participle nagged)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To continuously remind or complain to (someone) in an annoying way, often about insignificant or unnecessary matters.

Anyone would think that I nagged at you, Amanda! (From Amanda! by Robin Klein)

1. To bother with persistent thoughts or memories.

   The notion that he forgot something nagged him the rest of the day.

2. To bother or disturb persistently in any way.

   a nagging pain in his left knee

   a nagging north wind

Synonyms

• (continually remind or complain): ride
• (bother with thoughts or memories): haunt
• (persistently bother or annoy): worry

Derived terms

• nag screen
• nagware

Related terms

• gnaw

Translations

Noun

nag (plural nags)

1. Someone or something that nags.
2. A repeated complaint or reminder.
3. A persistent, bothersome thought or worry

Synonyms

• (person who nags): See Thesaurus:shrew

Derived terms

• nagless

Translations

Etymology 3

Noun

nag

1. Misspelling of knack.

References

• nag at OneLook Dictionary Search
• nag in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• AGN, ANG, GAN, GNA, GaN, Gan, NGA, gan

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch nacht (“night”), from Middle Dutch nacht, from Old Dutch naht, from Proto-Germanic *nahts, from Proto-Indo-European *nók?ts.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /na?/

Noun

nag (plural nagte)

1. The period between sunset and sunrise, when the sky is dark; night.
2. (countable) darkness.

Colán

Noun

nag

1. moon

Danish

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a?
• Rhymes: -a??

Noun

nag n (singular definite naget, not used in plural form)

1. grudge

Derived terms

• bære nag

Verb

nag

1. imperative of nage

Gaikundi

Noun

nag

1. sago

Further reading

• Gaikundi-Ontena Organised Phonology Data (2011)

German

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a?k

Verb

nag

1. singular imperative of nagen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of nagen

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *nag?, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *nog?ós (“naked”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /nâ??/

Adjective

n?g (definite n?g?, Cyrillic spelling ????)

1. naked

Declension

Synonyms

• g?l, g?

Derived terms

• nág?st

Slovene

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *nag?, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *nog?ós (“naked”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ná?k/

Adjective

n?g (not comparable)

1. naked

Inflection

This adjective needs an inflection-table template.

Synonyms

• gòl (more formal)

Derived terms

• nágost

Further reading

• “nag”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran

Welsh

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *nek?e, a combination of Proto-Indo-European *ne (negative particle) and *-k?e (“and”); compare Latin neque.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /na?/

Particle

nag

1. not (in answers and tag questions)

Usage notes

Used before a vowel, but not when that vowel has resulted from the soft mutation of g. Thus na + gallan becomes na allan, not *nag allan.

Alternative forms

• na (used before a consonant)

White Hmong

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /na???/

Noun

nag

1. rain

Derived terms

• los nag

Wolof

Noun

nag (definite form nag wi)

1. cow, cattle

Zhuang

Etymology

From Proto-Tai *na?k? (“otter”). Cognate with Thai ??? (nâak), Ahom ???????????? (nak).

Pronunciation

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /na?k?/
• Tone numbers: nag⁸
• Hyphenation: nag

Noun

nag (Sawndip forms ???? or ? or ???? or ???? or ?, old orthography nag)

1. otter

   Synonym: duznag

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?e?l/, [?e??]
• Rhymes: -e?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English rail, rayl, *re?el, *re?ol (found in re?olsticke (“a ruler”)), partly from Old English regol (“a ruler, straight bar”) and partly from Old French reille; both from Latin regula (“rule, bar”), from regere (“to rule, to guide, to govern”); see regular.

Noun

rail (plural rails)

1. A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
2. The metal bar that makes the track for a railroad.
3. A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.

4. A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
5. (surfing) One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.
   • c. 2000, Nick Carroll, surfline.com [1]:

     Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.

6. (Internet) A vertical section on one side of a web page.

7. (drugs) A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).
   • 2013, Jason Isbell, "Super 8":

     Do a couple rails and chase your own tail

Derived terms

Descendants

Translations

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. (intransitive) To travel by railway.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, At the End of the Passage

     Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert […]

2. (transitive) To enclose with rails or a railing.
   • 1726, John Ayliffe, Parergon juris canonici Anglicani

     It ought to be fenced in and railed.

3. (transitive) To range in a line.

   • They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.

Derived terms

• unrail

Translations

Etymology 2

From French râle, Old French rasle. Compare Medieval Latin rallus. Named from its harsh cry, Vulgar Latin *rasculum, from Latin r?dere (“to scrape”).

Noun

rail (plural rails)

Wikispecies

1. Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.

Usage notes

• Not all birds in the family Rallidae are rails by their common name. The family also includes coots, moorhens, crakes, flufftails, waterhens and others.

Derived terms

• Aztec rail
• banded rail
• buff-banded rail
• clapper rail
• king rail
• mangrove rail
• Mexican rail
• Okinawa rail
• Ridgway's rail
• water rail

Related terms

• ralline

Translations

See also

• corncrake

Etymology 3

From Middle French railler.

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. To complain violently (against, about).
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" (First folio)

     Till thou canst raile the seale from off my bond
     Thou but offend'st thy Lungs to speake so loud:
     Repaire thy wit good youth, or it will fall
     To endlesse ruine. I stand heere for Law.

   • 1882, Mark Twain, The Stolen White Elephant, [2]

     Now that the detectives were in adversity, the newspapers turned upon them, and began to fling the most stinging sarcasms at them. This gave the minstrels an idea, and they dressed themselves as detectives and hunted the elephant on the stage in the most extravagant way. The caricaturists made pictures of detectives scanning the country with spy-glasses, while the elephant, at their backs, stole apples out of their pockets. And they made all sorts of ridiculous pictures of the detective badge—you have seen that badge printed in gold on the back of detective novels no doubt, it is a wide-staring eye, with the legend, “WE NEVER SLEEP.” When detectives called for a drink, the would-be facetious barkeeper resurrected an obsolete form of expression and said, “Will you have an eye-opener?” All the air was thick with sarcasms. But there was one man who moved calm, untouched, unaffected, through it all. It was that heart of oak, the chief inspector. His brave eye never drooped, his serene confidence never wavered. He always said: “Let them rail on; he laughs best who laughs last.”

   • 1910, "Saki", H. H. Munro, The Bag,[3]

     The Major’s fury clothed and reclothed itself in words as frantically as a woman up in town for one day’s shopping tries on a succession of garments. He reviled and railed at fate and the general scheme of things, he pitied himself with a strong, deep pity too poignent for tears, he condemned every one with whom he had ever come in contact to endless and abnormal punishments.

   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus 2010, p. 27:

     Chief Joyi railed against the white man, whom he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother.

Translations

Etymology 4

From Middle English rail, reil, from Old English hræ?l (“garment, dress, robe”). Cognate with Old Frisian hreil, reil, Old Saxon hregil, Old High German hregil (“clothing, garment, dress”).

Alternative forms

• rayle

Noun

rail (plural rails)

1. (obsolete) An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.
2. (obsolete) Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fairholt to this entry?)

Derived terms

• night-rail

Etymology 5

Probably from Anglo-Norman raier, Middle French raier.

Verb

rail (third-person singular simple present rails, present participle railing, simple past and past participle railed)

1. (obsolete, of a liquid) To gush, flow.

   • his breste and his brayle was bloodé – and hit rayled all over the see.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.2:

     So furiously each other did assayle, / As if their soules they would attonce haue rent / Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle / Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent […].

See also

• ride the rail

Anagrams

• Lair, aril, lair, lari, liar, lira, rial

Catalan

Alternative forms

• raïl (superseded)

Etymology

Borrowed from English rail.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?rajl/

Noun

rail m (plural rails)

1. rail

   Synonym: carril

Further reading

• “rail” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English rail.

Pronunciation

• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /rel/
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /re?l/

Noun

rail f (plural rails, diminutive railsje n or railtje n)

1. rail

Usage notes

The diminutive railsjes is only used if used for railway tracks.

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: rel

References

French

Etymology

From English rail.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?aj/
• Homophone: raï

Noun

rail m (plural rails)

1. rail

Further reading

• “rail” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• lira

Spanish

Noun

rail m (plural railes)

1. (rare) Alternative form of raíl

Further reading

• “rail” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.