hag

Meanings

Noun

• A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a wizard.
• An ugly old woman.
• A fury; a she-monster.
• A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
• A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
• An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a man's hair.
• The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
• sleep paralysis
• A small wood, or part of a wood or copse, which is marked off or enclosed for felling, or which has been felled.
• A quagmire; mossy ground where peat or turf has been cut.

Verb

• To harass; to weary with vexation.

Related

Similar words

• borer, hagfish, sleepmarken, slime eel, sucker, myxinid
• hagdon, haglet, shearwater
• bird cherry, hackberry

Origin

• From Middle English hagge, hegge, shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes, from Proto-Germanic *hagatusjō (compare Saterland Frisian Häkse ("witch"), Dutch heks, German Hexe ("witch")), compounds of (1) *hagaz (compare Old Norse hagr ("handy, skillful"), Middle High German behac ("pleasurable")), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱak- (compare Sanskrit शक्नोति ("he can")), and (2) *tusjǭ (compare dialectal Norwegian tysja). hex.
• From Scots hag ("to cut"), from Old Norse hǫgg ("cut, gap, breach"), derivative of hǫggva; compare English hew.
• From Proto-Germanic *hag(g)ōnan (compare obsolete Dutch hagen ("to torment, agonize"), Norwegian haga ("to tire, weaken")).