▪ I. clag, n. north. dial.
[app. f. the verb.]
1. The process or product of clagging; a sticky mass adhering to feet or clothes, entangled in hair, or the like; a clot of wool consolidated with dirt about the hinder parts of a sheep, etc.
| 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (1856) 11 They [lambs] are then..forthwith to bee dressed and have their clagges clipped from them. 1877 E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss., Clags, dirt sticking to any one after walking in mud. Dirty wool cut from sheep. 1881 Sutton N. Linc. Gloss., Clags, clotted locks of dirty wool on a sheep. |
2. An encumbrance or burden on property. Sc.
| 1697 G. Dallas Styles 813 (Jam.) All claggs, claims, debates and contraversies standing betwixt them. 1722 Ramsay Three Bonnets i. 19 A good estate..handed down frae sire to son, But clag or claim, for ages past. |
3. A stain or flaw on character. Sc.
| 1724 Ramsay Tea-t. Misc. (1733) II. 206 He was a man without a clag, His heart was frank without a flaw. |
▪ II. clag, v. Chiefly north. dial.
(klæg)
Also 5–7 clagge.
[Not traced beyond the 15th c.: perh. of Norse origin, cf. Da. klag, klagge, sticky mud, clay, klæg, klæget viscous, glutinous, sticky, which point to the same origin as OE. clæᵹ, clay. There may have been some subseq. association with clog; but in localities where clag is indigenous, it is kept quite distinct from clog.]
1. trans. To bedaub (the clothes), clot (the hair) with anything sticky and tenacious, as miry clay, glue, toffee, etc.
| c 1470 Henry Wallace vi. 455 The gown and hois in clay that claggit was. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 140 We come to the gates all clagged with myre and clay. c 1538 Lyndesay Syde Taillis 68 Ane mureland Meg..Claggit with clay abone the howis. 1881 Sutton N. Linc. Gloss., Clagged, clotted with dirt. 1886 Cole S.W. Linc. Gloss., Clag, to daub, or clog together with sticky mud or clay. |
2. To clog by such bedaubing or clotting.
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 232 b, She [the bee] wyll also clagge her legges with as moche as she may beare. 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (1856) 62 A meanes to clagge the bees, and to make them abide better in the hive. 1883 Almondbury & Huddersf. Gloss., Clag, the same as clog, as when dust [mixed with the oil] causes machinery to move with difficulty. |
3. intr. To stick tenaciously, as anything adhesive, or viscid; also transf.
| 1563 T. Hill Arte Garden. (1593) 14 Least by raine and shoures, the earth should cleaue and clagge on your feete. 1570 Levins Manip. 10 To clag, herere vt lutum. 1795 W. Marshall E. Yorksh. (ed. 2) Gloss., Clag, to cleave or cling. 1855 Whitby Gloss., Clag, to adhere as paste; also to cling as the child to the mother, who says ‘it clags to its best friend.’ 1876 Mid. Yorksh. Gloss., Clag, to adhere, to cling, to cleave to. |
4. dial. [f. clag n.] To remove the clags or dirty clots from a fleece. (Cf. clack v.2)
| 1863 Gloss. in Morton Cycl. Agric. (E.D.S.), Clag (Linc.), see Burl. Burl, to cut away the dirty wool from the hind parts of a sheep. |