rag

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A scrap of cloth.
2. n. A piece of cloth used for cleaning, washing, or dusting.
3. n. Threadbare or tattered clothing.
4. n. Cloth converted to pulp for making paper.
5. n. A scrap; a fragment.
6. n. Slang A newspaper, especially one specializing in sensationalism or gossip.
7. n. The stringy central portion and membranous walls of a citrus fruit.
8. idiom. on the rag Vulgar Slang Menstruating.
9. idiom. on the rag Vulgar Slang Irritable; grouchy.
10. v. Slang To tease or taunt. See Synonyms at banter.
11. v. Slang To berate; scold.
12. v. Chiefly British To play a joke on.
13. v. Sports In ice hockey, to maintain possession of (the puck) by outmaneuvering opposing players, especially so as to kill a penalty.
14. n. Chiefly British A practical joke; a prank.
15. n. A roofing slate with one rough surface.
16. n. Chiefly British A coarsely textured rock.
17. v. To compose or play (a piece) in ragtime.
18. n. A piece written in ragtime.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A sharp or jagged fragment rising from a surface or edge: as, a rag on a metal plate; hence, a jagged face of rock; a rocky headland; a cliff; a crag.
2. n. A rock having or weathering with a rough irregular surface.
3. n. In botany:
4. n. A lichen, Sticta pulmonaria (see hazel-crottles).
5. n. Another lichen, Parmelia saxatilis (stone-rag).
6. n. A catkin of the hazel, or of the willow, Salix caprea. Also raw.
7. n. A torn, worn, or formless fragment or shred of cloth; a comparatively worthless piece of any textile fabric, either wholly or partly detached from its connection by violence or abrasion: as, his coat was in rags; cotton and linen rags are used to make paper, and woolen rags to make shoddy.
8. n. A worn, torn, or mean garment; in the plural, shabby or worn-out clothes, showing rents and patches.
9. n. Any separate fragment or shred of cloth, or of something like or likened to it: often applied disparagingly or playfully to a handkerchief, a flag or banner, a sail, the curtain of a theater, a newspaper, etc.
10. n. Figuratively, a severed fragment; a remnant; a scrap; a bit.
11. n. A base, beggarly person; a ragamuffin; a tatterdemalion.
12. n. A farthing.
13. n. A herd of colts.
14. n. In type-founding, the bur or rough edge left on imperfectly finished type.
15. Made of or with rags; formed from or consisting of refuse pieces or fragments of cloth: as, rag pulp for paper-making; a rag carpet.
16. In U. S. political slang, the paper currency of the government; greenback money: so called with reference to the contention of the Greenback party, before and after the resumption of specie payments in 1879, in favor of making such money a full legal tender for the national debt and all other purposes.
17. To become ragged; fray: with out.
18. To dress; deck one's self: in the phrase to rag out, to dress in one's best.
19. To make ragged; abrade; give a ragged appearance to, as in the rough-dressing of the face of a grindstone.
20. In mining, to separate by ragging or with the aid of the ragging-hammer. See ragging, 2.
21. To banter; badger; rail at; irritate; torment. Compare bullyrag.
22. n. A drizzling rain.
23. n. An abbreviation of raginee.
24. n. In botany: The pithy axis and the membranes separating the sections of the orange and other citrus fruits.
25. n. A coat; a tunic: army slang in India in the last century; still used. Also raggie (which see).
26. n. In Oxford University, a noisy, disorderly outbreak, in violation of established regulations: originally peculiar to English university life.

Wiktionary

1. n. A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture; ragstone.
2. v. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.
3. v. To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.
4. n. in the plural Tattered clothes.
5. n. A piece of old cloth; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred, a tatter.
6. n. A shabby, beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin.
7. n. A ragged edge.
8. n. A sail, or any piece of canvas.
9. n. slang, pejorative A newspaper, magazine.
10. n. this sense?) (poker slang) A card that appears to help no one.
11. n. this sense?) (poker slang) A low card.
12. v. To scold or rail at; to rate; to tease; to torment; to banter.
13. v. UK slang To drive a car or another vehicle in a hard, fast or unsympathetic manner.
14. v. To tease or torment, especially at a university; to bully, to haze.
15. n. dated A prank or practical joke.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. Prov. Eng. To scold or rail at; to rate; to tease; to torment; to banter.
2. n. A piece of cloth torn off; a tattered piece of cloth; a shred; a tatter; a fragment.
3. n. Hence, mean or tattered attire; worn-out dress.
4. n. A shabby, beggarly fellow; a ragamuffin.
5. n. (Geol.) A coarse kind of rock, somewhat cellular in texture.
6. n. (Metal Working) A ragged edge.
7. n. Nautical Slang A sail, or any piece of canvas.
8. v. obsolete To become tattered.
9. v. To break (ore) into lumps for sorting.
10. v. To cut or dress roughly, as a grindstone.
11. v. (Music), colloq. To play or compose (a piece, melody, etc.) in syncopated time.
12. v. Colloq. or Slang To dance to ragtime music, esp. in some manner considered indecorous.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. censure severely or angrily
2. n. newspaper with half-size pages
3. v. treat cruelly
4. v. cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations
5. v. play in ragtime
6. n. a boisterous practical joke (especially by college students)
7. n. a week at British universities during which side-shows and processions of floats are organized to raise money for charities
8. n. a small piece of cloth or paper
9. v. harass with persistent criticism or carping
10. n. music with a syncopated melody (usually for the piano)
11. v. break into lumps before sorting