gag
pronunciation
How to pronounce gag in British English:
UK [ɡæɡ]
How to pronounce gag in American English:
US [ɡæɡ]
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- Noun:
- a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter
- restraint put into a person's mouth to prevent speaking or shouting
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- Verb:
- prevent from speaking out
- be too tight; rub or press
- tie a gag around someone's mouth in order to silence them
- make jokes or quips
- struggle for breath; have insufficient oxygen intake
- cause to retch or choke
- make an unsuccessful effort to vomit; strain to vomit
Word Origin
- gag
- gag: [15] Middle English gaggen meant ‘strangle, suffocate’, so the word started out with strong connotations that seem to have become submerged in local dialects as it came to be used more commonly in the milder sense ‘obstruct someone’s mouth’. In the 20th century, however, they have re-emerged in the intransitive sense ‘choke’. It is not clear how the 19th-century noun sense ‘joke’ is connected, if at all. As for the word’s source, it is generally said to have originated as an imitation of someone retching or choking.
- gag (v.)
- mid-15c., transitive, "to choke, strangle" (someone), possibly imitative and perhaps influenced by Old Norse gag-hals "with head thrown back." The sense of "stop a person's mouth by thrusting something into it" is first attested c. 1500. Intransitive sense of "to retch" is from 1707. Transitive meaning "cause to heave with nausea" is from 1945. Related: Gagged; gagging.
- gag (n.2)
- "a joke," 1863, especially a practical joke, probably related to theatrical sense of "matter interpolated in a written piece by the actor" (1847); or from the sense "made-up story" (1805); or from slang verbal sense of "to deceive, take in with talk" (1777), all of which perhaps are from gag (v.) on the notion of "to stuff, fill" (see gag (v.)). Gagster "comedian" is by 1932.
- gag (n.1)
- "something thrust into the mouth or throat to prevent speaking," 1550s, from gag (v.); figurative use, "violent or authoritative repression of speech," is from 1620s. Gag-law in reference to curbs on freedom of the press is from 1798, American English. The gag-rule that blocked anti-slavery petitions in the U.S. House of Representatives was in force from 1836 to 1844.
Example
- 1. I made a gag face for effect .
- 2. What I didn 't expect was to find a good running gag about art in it .
- 3. But as the demonstration showed , the kind of outrage that arises in russia when the gag is loosened may be more than the authorities are ready to permit .
- 4. Setting a roommate 's alarm clock back an hour is a common gag .
- 5. She made a gag about his baldness .