rag

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• transitive verb To compose or play (a piece) in ragtime.
• noun A piece written in ragtime.
• noun A roofing slate with one rough surface.
• noun Chiefly British A coarsely textured rock.
• transitive verb To criticize or scold (someone).
• transitive verb To criticize or complain about (something).
• transitive verb To tease or taunt (someone).
• transitive verb Chiefly British To play a joke on.
• transitive verb Sports In ice hockey, to maintain possession of (the puck) by outmaneuvering opposing players, especially so as to kill a penalty.
• noun A practical joke; a prank.
• noun A scrap of cloth.
• noun A piece of cloth used for cleaning, washing, or dusting.
• noun Threadbare or tattered clothing.
• noun Cloth converted to pulp for making paper.
• noun A scrap; a fragment.
• noun Slang A newspaper, especially one specializing in sensationalism or gossip.
• noun The stringy central portion and membranous walls of a citrus fruit.
• idiom (on the rag) Menstruating.
• idiom (on the rag) Irritable; grouchy.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A drizzling rain.
• To banter; badger; rail at; irritate; torment. Compare bullyrag.
• noun An abbreviation of raginee.
• noun In Oxford University, a noisy, disorderly outbreak, in violation of established regulations: originally peculiar to English university life.
• noun In botany: The pithy axis and the membranes separating the sections of the orange and other citrus fruits.
• noun A coat; a tunic: army slang in India in the last century; still used. Also raggie (which see).
• To become ragged; fray: with out.
• To dress; deck one's self: in the phrase to rag out, to dress in one's best.
• To make ragged; abrade; give a ragged appearance to, as in the rough-dressing of the face of a grindstone.
• In mining, to separate by ragging or with the aid of the ragging-hammer. See ragging, 2.
• noun 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.
• noun A rock having or weathering with a rough irregular surface.
• noun In botany:
• noun A lichen, Sticta pulmonaria (see hazel-crottles).
• noun Another lichen, Parmelia saxatilis (stone-rag).
• noun A catkin of the hazel, or of the willow, Salix caprea. Also raw.
• noun 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.
• noun A worn, torn, or mean garment; in the plural, shabby or worn-out clothes, showing rents and patches.
• noun 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.
• noun Figuratively, a severed fragment; a remnant; a scrap; a bit.
• noun A base, beggarly person; a ragamuffin; a tatterdemalion.
• noun A farthing.
• noun A herd of colts.
• noun In type-founding, the bur or rough edge left on imperfectly finished type.
• 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.
• 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.