▪ I. quag, n.
(kwæg, kwɒg)
Also 6, 8 quage, 7 quagg(e.
[Related to quag v.; cf. quab, quaw, and see quagmire.]
a. A marshy or boggy spot, esp. one covered with a layer of turf which shakes or yields when walked on. Also transf. and fig.
| 1589 P. Ive Fortif. 16 Where you finde quicke sands, quages, and such like. 1657 Howell Londinop. 342 Moorfields, which in former times, was but a fenny quagge, or moore. a 1677 Barrow Serm. Wks. 1716 III. 143 The latter walk upon a bottomless Quag into which unawares they may slump. 1784 Cowper Tiroc. 253 We keep the road, Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells. 1842 I. Taylor Anc. Christianity II. viii. 480 Thoughtless thousands of the people are thus beguiled into the filthiest quags of ‘abominable idolatry’. 1883 Besant All in a Garden fair i. ii. (1885) 19 There are pools in the forest..there are marshy places and quags. 1888 Ch. Times 27 Jan. 68/3 All who are trying to find a way out of the Vatican quag, without turning Protestants. 1904 Daily Chron. 18 May 3/4 Her clothes were a quag of blood. |
b. attrib. and Comb., as quag-brain, quag-kind, quag-water.
| 1719 D'Urfey Pills (1872) II. 244 Tho' Law and Justice were of slender growth Within his quag Brain. 1772 Walker in Phil. Trans. LXII. 124 It was mostly of the quag kind, which is a sort of moss covered at top with a turf of heath and coarse aquatic grasses. a 1870 D. G. Rossetti Poems (1870) 252, I..fouled my feet in quag-water. |
▪ II. quag, v.1 Obs. exc. dial.
(kwæg)
[Onomatopœic: cf. wag, swag. Some dialects have also quaggle corresp. to waggle.]
intr. To shake; said of something soft or flabby.
| 1611 Cotgr., Brimbaler,..to shake, swag, or quag, as a great dug, or th' vnsound flesh of a foggie person. 1616–61 B. Holyday Persius 337 That To him a strutting panch may quagge with fat. 1623 tr. Favine's Theat. Hon. v. i. 35 The earth being uncertaine and quagging. 1881 Blackmore Christowell xlviii, Many a poor head will ache, and many a poor belly quag, if it is so bad as they tell me. |
▪ III. quag, v.2 rare—1.
[f. quag n.]
trans. To submerge or fix in a quag.
| 1673 Marvell Reh. Transp. ii. Wks. 1776 II. 502 Unfortunately..you sink deeper and quag yourself in your Roman Empire. |