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Tag   Listen
noun
Tag  n.  
1.
Any slight appendage, as to an article of dress; something slight hanging loosely; specifically, a direction card, or label.
2.
A metallic binding, tube, or point, at the end of a string, or lace, to stiffen it.
3.
The end, or catchword, of an actor's speech; cue.
4.
Something mean and paltry; the rabble. (Obs.)
Tag and rag, the lowest sort; the rabble.
5.
A sheep of the first year. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tag" Quotes from Famous Books



... heart. When Sophocles repeats himself—the Electra is but a feeble study for the Antigone, or possibly a feeble copy of it—we get near the man; the limitations of his outlook are characteristic: when he deforms his Ajax with a tag of political partisanship, his servitude to surroundings defines his conscience as an artist; and when painting by contrasts he poses the weak Ismene and Chrysothemis as foils to their heroic sisters, we see that his dramatic power in the essential was rudimentary. Yet Mr. Matthew Arnold, a living ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... French marched, in their turn, to plunder the towns of Hirchfeldt and Vacha. Accordingly, they appeared at Vacha, situated on the frontiers of Hesse, and formed the head of the chain of cantonments which the allies had on the Werra. This place was attacked with such vigour, that colonel Frey-tag, who commanded the post, was obliged to abandon the town: but he maintained himself on a rising ground in the neighbourhood, where he amused the enemy until two battalions of grenadiers came to his assistance. Thus ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... hands. Lord MIDLETON was delighted to think that it would. Lord CREWE declared that the creation of minor Ministers was becoming a disease (possibly the Ministry of Health will include it among "notifiable" epidemics?). Lord BLEDISLOE quoted the old tag about big fleas and little fleas. But after all there must be some check to the inveterate tendency to somnolence in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various

... ruefully. "What I need now is a ten-volume history of the last century, and time enough for you to read it. But since we don't have either—" She broke off, then after a pause asked, "Your date was 1981, wasn't it? It and your name were on the tag ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... Them kids of mine do wear out the soles of their shoes some. But, Lafe, I can't tag Maudlin ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... referred: the contrast between the keen vigorous good sense upon immediate questions of the day, to which I often listen with the unfeigned admiration due to the shrewd man of business, and the paltry little outworn platitudes which he introduces when he wants to tag his arguments with sounding principles. I think, to take an example out of harm's way, that an excellent instance is found in the famous American treatise, the Federalist. It deserves all the credit it has won so long as the authors are discussing the right way to form a constitution ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... this. . . ." The malicious side glance went unseen by all but Hopalong, who stiffened with the raging suspicion of being twitted on his own deformity. The humor of the tale failed to appeal to him, and when his full senses returned Lucas was in the midst of the story of the deadly game of tag played in a ten-acre lot of dense underbrush by two of his old-time friends. It was a tale of gripping interest and his auditors were leaning forward in their eagerness not to miss a word. "An' Pierce won," finished Lucas; "some shot up, but able to get about. He was all ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... Santa Fe over the long trail. Every last gun of us. Aunty Boone, and Mat, and you, and me, and Jondo, and Uncle Esmond, rag-tag and bobtail. Whoop-ee-diddle-dee!" Beverly threw up his cap, and, catching Mat by the arms, they whirled around the ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... to see the real size of these luminous bodies, take a very thin board and make in it a hole no bigger than the tag of a lace and place it as close to your eye as possible, so that when you look through this hole, at the said light, you can see a large space of air round it. Then by rapidly moving this board backwards and forwards before your eye you will see ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... upon the table a round box coated with paraffin to exclude the air. A tag was attached to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne

... the Struggle for Existence', Mr. Darwin draws attention to the marvellous destruction of life which is constantly going on in nature. For every species of living thing, as for man, "Eine Bresche ist ein jeder Tag."—Every species has its enemies; every species has to compete with others for the necessaries of existence; the weakest goes to the wall, and death is the penalty inflicted on all laggards and stragglers. Every variety to which a species may give rise is either worse or ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... banquet for me; but I got him to go in on a little winter wheat flier instead. He didn't drop much. After that I'd slip in a paragraph about him now and then, always calling him the sculptor poet. The tag stuck. Other papers began to use it; until, first thing I knew, Virgie was getting away with it. Honest, I just invented him. And now he passes for ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford

... mobile, the meniscus is torn or lacerated. The experience of surgeons varies regarding the nature of the laceration. In our experience the most common form is a longitudinal split, whereby a portion of the inner edge of the cartilage is separated from the rest and projects as a tag towards the centre of the joint (Fig. 86). As a rule, it is the anterior end that is torn, less frequently the posterior end. Sometimes the meniscus is split from end to end, the outer crescent remaining in position, while the inner crescent passes in between the condyles ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... on that account. If they had only possessed two small pieces of wood with which to create the necessary friction, they could easily have made a lamp out of one of the bear's shoulder-blades, and found oil enough in his own fat, while a tag of sealskin, or some other portion of clothing might have supplied a wick; but not a scrap of wood was to be obtained on that verdureless island. Okiok did indeed suggest that Norrak and Ippegoo, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... extraordinary—far more vivid than men of mature years can easily conceive. It is often so in early youth when we listen to the voice of authority; some particular chance phrase will have an unmeasured effect upon one. A worn tag and platitude solemnly spoken, and at a critical moment, may change the whole of a career. And so it was with George, as you will shortly perceive. For as he rumbled along in the Tube his father's words became a veritable ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... little toes. With their strong bent for copying, they lay on their sides like their mother and scratched with their tiny feet and flopped with their wings, though they had no wings to flop with, only a little tag among the down on each side, to show where the wings would come. That night she took them to a dry thicket near by, and there among the crisp, dead leaves that would prevent an enemy's silent approach on foot, and under the interlacing briers ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... she argued. Elizabeth's position was a difficult one, and she was vastly relieved when the matter was dropped, and she and Rosie, with Eppie and Susie as their opponents, played puzzle during school hours and tag ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... apples being all gone and Carter having consented in response to their coaxing to stay half an hour longer, they had a glorious game of tag. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... went to have some fun and roll in the dried grass. It was just as if you had gone to roll and tumble on the hay in Grandpa's barn. The lion boys leaped about, jumped over one another, made believe bite one another and played tag with ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum

... a baseball does when you're far from first and the pitcher is heaving it over, to tag ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... holy time was at an end. The doors, behind which, in Sabbatical decorum, the children had been pent up all day long, swung open with a simultaneous bang, and the boys with a whoop and halloo, tumbled over each other into the street, while the girls tripped gaily after. Innumerable games of tag, and "I spy," were organized in a trice, and for the hour or two between that and bed time, the small fry of the village devoted themselves, without a moment's intermission, to getting the Sabbath stiffening out of their ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... discovery or illustration, no profound thought, no vivid description, not even a harmonious period. Macaulay is a smart reviewer, indifferent to truth, a hanger-on of party. Lingard is more honest, and writes better. He does not tag together loose epigrams with a crooked pin. Now put the empty chairs of these people against the wall, and sit down to your table with a long piece of work before you. And now you must be tired, as I foretold you would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... nicht von drei tausend Jahren sich weiss Rechenschaft zu geben, Bleib' im Dunkeln unerfahren, mag von Tag zu Tage leben! ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton

... and long enough to hold your boxes and pots. After placing them here give them a thorough watering, and cover with six or eight inches of soil. Cover freesias only two inches, with a light soil. If you wish to keep tabs on your plantings, use a long stake, with place for tag at the top, in each pan or box. ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell

... made a cup. When it was full she emptied it into Jim's pail. They were such great, luscious berries that they soon had it filled. Then they sat down and rested. Everybody knows that it is harder work to pick berries than to play "tag." ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... navy men—drink to what they call Der Tag y'know—the day when they shall dare try to tackle England. We all know that. They're planning war, twenty years from now perhaps, that shall give them all our colonies as well as India and Egypt. They're so keen on it they ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... branch of trade has, or was at least intended to have, here its appointed abode; and there are Tea Rows; Silversmiths and Calico Streets; Fur Lanes; Soap, Candle, and Caviare Alleys; Photograph, Holy Images, and Priestly Vestments Bazaars; Boot, Slop, Tag and Rag Marts and Depositories—all in their compartments, kin with kin, and like with like; and everything is made to clear out of the way, and all is smoothed down; all subsides into order and rule, and not very ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... the tag of an old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels of the Achill coast fixed in his memory, along with the rain and the wind and the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig and the knickety-knock of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... should be the cornerstone of his life. But Shari was something rare—a gorgeous woman, if somewhat distant, who was thoroughly intelligent. She had already earned her doctorate, while I was still struggling with the tag ends ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett

... and it's taken me two years to find it out. You're trying to follow that idea all along the line. You're dead right, and I'm going to tag on, if you don't mind. I was glad enough for your present at the time, and I'm glad yet; but I've learned my lesson, and you may bet your dear life that no man will ever again give ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... papers are not so valuable that it would be an object for— for some one to try to take them away from me," she mused. Instinctively she glanced behind her, but the peaceful road was deserted save for the sunshine and shadows playing tag in the dust. Then Grace looked above. The sky was of rather a somber tint, that seemed to suggest a storm to come, and there was a sultriness and a silence, with so little wind that it might indicate a coming disturbance of the elements ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope

... could go. Then I unlocked the door, and the boy—who was a big, strapping fellow—entered with me. We found the ex-broker still wrapped in the soundest slumber. Leaving the boy to watch him, I went upstairs and got a baggage-tag which I directed to the chief of police at the police station in Hackingford. I returned to the kitchen and fastened this tag, conspicuously, on the lapel of the sleeper's coat. Then, with a clothes-line, I tied him up carefully, hand and foot. To all this he ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... of a function. The boys sat round upon the grass; behind them were the carriages and coaches—you could drive on to the ground then!—and here and there, only here and there, a tent or a small stand. Consule Planco—the parson loves a Latin tag—the match was an immense picnic for Harrovians and Etonians. And, my word, you ought to have heard the chaff when an unlucky fielder put the ball on the floor. Or, when a batsman interposed a pad where a bat ought to have been. Or, if a player was bowled first ball. Or, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... shopgirl is almost as well dressed on the street as her rich customer. The man who buys ready-made clothing is only a few weeks behind the vanguard of the fashion. There is often no difference perceptible to the ordinary eye between cheap and high-priced clothing once the price tag is off. Jewels as a portable form of concentrated costliness have been in favor from the earliest ages, but now they are losing their factitious value through the advance of invention. Rubies of unprecedented size, not ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... outstretched to grasp him, and he, too, went down, screeching lustily. Another knife flashed and another shirt-tag ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish

... having cleared off certain Pandour swarms visible in places of difficulty, who go on first notice, and without shot fired. [Lloyd, i. 61 et seq. (or Tempelhof's Translation, i. 151-164); Tempelhof's own Account is, i. 179-196; Retzow's, i. 120-149 (fewer errors of detail than usual); Kutzen, Der Tag von Kolin (Breslau, 1857), a useful little compilation from many sources. Very incorrect most of the common accounts are; Kausler's Schlachten, Jomini, and the like.] Marches through Planian in two columns, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... kill that brute?" There didn't seem to be any alternative. Between him and Dona Rita I couldn't hesitate. I believe I gave a slight laugh of desperation. The suddenness of this sinister conclusion had in it something comic and unbelievable. It loosened my grip on my mental processes. A Latin tag came into my head about the facile descent into the abyss. I marvelled at its aptness, and also that it should have come to me so pat. But I believe now that it was suggested simply by the actual declivity of the ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... me all bunch keys—look!" and Bateato produced a gold key ring with a gold tag and a number of keys attached. Phelan examined it and read aloud the name Travers Gladwin engraved on the tag. Handing them back to the Jap, he addressed him impressively, gesturing ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... for Mr. Balfour would stay to dinner, and led me into a bedroom in the upper part of the house. Here he set before me water and soap, and a comb; and laid out some clothes that belonged to his son; and here, with another apposite tag, he left me to ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... how shall I go to work?" inquired Alan cheerfully. "Shall I dance a breakdown, or will you play tag?" ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... kept by Shakespeare's friend and fellow actor, Richard Tarleton, the low comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It was this humorous, ugly actor who no doubt suggested to the great manager many of his jesters, fools, and simpletons, and we know that the tag songs—such as that at the end of All's Well that Ends Well, "When that I was a little tiny boy"—were expressly written for Tarleton, and were danced by that comedian to the tune of a pipe and a tabor which he himself played. The part which Tarleton had to play as host and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... trouble. Finer feelings with him were only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the "tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and consistent creed—La femme se ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... sidewise and backwards, in these pamphlets, without exhausting them. I have not ceased to think of the great warm heart that sends them forth, and which I, with others, sometimes tag with satire, and with not being warm enough for this poor world;—I too,—though I know its meltings to-me-ward. Then I learned that the newspapers had announced the death of your mother (which I heard of casually on the Rock River, Illinois), and ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... boots, gowns into doublets, cloaks into hose, Sunday bonnets despoiled of their plumage, silken cauliflowers sown broadcast over the land, and cocked-up caps erected in every style of architecture, while "Tag, Rag, and Bobtail" drove a smashing business, and everybody knew what everybody else was going to be, and solemnly vowed they didn't—which transparent falsehood was the best joke of ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott

... definitely moral sentiment which has been thus created. And step by step with the development of this change, yet another is developed: the moral tends to become more indeterminate and large. It ceases to be possible to append it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, as one might write the name below a caricature; and the fable begins to take rank with all other forms of creative literature, as something too ambitious, in spite of its miniature dimensions, to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... say a word he had gathered Lizzie up in his arms an' kissed her, an' she kissed back as prompt as if it had been a slap in a game o' tag. ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller

... to go and carry that gun! I never thought they'd spot it. Well, it's all up now, and if Waydell heard of it he'd want to fire me. But I'll make good yet. I'll have to adopt some other disguise, and see if I can't tag along behind." ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... says Luther, gehet nun dies gebot nach dem groben Verstande uns Christen nichts an, &c.) Melancthon (continues Hengstenberg,) agreed with Luther, and this view was introduced into the Augsburg Confession." See Hengstenberg, ueber den Tag des Herrn, Berlin, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... translation of this poem is a fact resting on his own statement in a passage indisputably written by him (in the "Prologue" to the "Legend of Good Women"); nor is the value of this statement reduced by the negative circumstance, that in the extraordinary tag (if it may be called by so irreverent a name) to the extant "Canterbury Tales," the "Romaunt of the Rose" is passed over in silence, or at least not nominally mentioned, among the objectionable works which the poet is there made to retract. And there seems at least no necessity ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... the ranch the first contingent of gathered cattle were under herd. They were a rag-tag lot, many of them big steers, while much of the younger stuff was clear of earmark or brand until after their arrival at the home corrals. The ranch help herded them by day and penned them at night, but on the arrival of the independent outfit ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... not miss him for hours. He went, taking the little identification card from its frame at the foot of his bed—and that ruined the correlation between tag and patient. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... from Amsterdam twelve days after the conference held at Mainz between Professor von Schwenitz and General von Helmuth, and having safely rounded the Orkneys was now already well on its course toward Labrador. Bennie Hooker, however, was ignorant of all these things. Like an immigrant with a tag on his arm, he sat on the train which bore him toward Quebec, his ticket stuck into the band on his hat, dreaming of a transformer that wouldn't—couldn't—melt ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train

... desert's little ways, chummed up with the mesa, or fought it out with death at the tag end of all creation? Here is a story fresh from the heart of the desert with all of the tang of the West to it that Remington put into ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... Joan promptly. "I was sorry I didn't go and call on the kid, particularly after I found out who she was. I only met her twice at the tag end of ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... The gals 'll tag me to the barn; An' climb the mows, an' waller All over ev'ry ton o' hay— An' laugh an' scream an' holler. The boys 'll git in this an' that; An' git a lickin'—p'r'aps, sir— Jest like the'r daddies used to git When they was ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... with a smattering of learning, or perhaps an English immigrant of the upper class, unfit for and broken down by the work of a new country. [Footnote: Durrett MSS. "Autobiography of Robert McAfee."] The boys and girls were taught together, and at recess played together—tag, pawns, and various kissing games. The rod was used unsparingly, for the elder boys proved boisterous pupils. A favorite mutinous frolic was to "bar out" the teacher, taking possession of the school-house and holding it against the master with sticks and stones until he had either forced an ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... The 10th day of January the ambassadors rode into Hampton Court, and there they had as great cheer as could be had, and hunted and killed, tag and rag, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude

... give a cracky whether we are or not! Those rag-tag and bobtail vermin are calling us names!—and, if I can't fight, by ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... words the A.D.T. Kid ceased weeping and cheerfully proceeded up an Alley, where he played "Wood Tag." ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... on a cloth, the ends were looped up making a bag of it, and the thing was taken to the river bank. It weighed probably thirty pounds. A stake was driven in the ground to which a tag was attached giving a description of the remains. This is done in many cases to the burned bodies, and they lay covered with cloths upon the bank until men came with coffins to remove them. Then the tag was taken from the stakes and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... do so, but left the door open and enjoyed the fun as much as they did, for a more glorious frolic I never witnessed. They played tag and soldiers, danced and sang, and when it began to grow dark they all piled onto the sofa about the Professor, while he told charming fairy stories of the storks on the chimney tops, and the little 'koblods', who ride the snowflakes as they fall. I wish Americans were as ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... Uller and the Fifth Cavalry have mutinied; so have these rag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them." He was puffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thing blew up in seconds; no chance ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... playground and shout and throw your arms about and run races to fill your lungs full of fresh, sweet air and stretch all your muscles, after the confinement and sitting still. Don't saunter about and whisper secrets or tell stories, but get up some lively game that doesn't take long to play, such as tag or steal-sticks or soak-ball, or duck-on-a-rock or skipping or hopscotch. These will blow all the "smoke" out of your lungs and send the hot blood flying all over your body and make you as "fresh as a daisy" for ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson

... Solomons, Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks, Heaviside, Sidebottom, Longbottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as Blanchenhagen, or Blanchenhausen; or a short name, as Crib, Crisp, Crips, Tag, Trot, Tub, Phips, Padge, Papps, or Prig, or Wig, or Pip, or Trip; Trip had been something, but Ho—-. (Walks about in great agitation—recovering his calmness a ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... is commonly observed in England, or, at all events, in Scotland, where the writer has seen many a kernababy. The last gleanings of the last field are bound up in a rude imitation of the human shape, and dressed in some tag-rags of finery. The usage has fallen into the conservative hands of children, but of old 'the Maiden' was a regular image of the harvest goddess, which, with a sickle and sheaves in her arms, attended by a crowd of reapers, and accompanied with music, followed ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... above kin hit me evah w'en he wants to; I knows dat; but den Ise gwine to climb fur the shoah foah dat lightnin' play tag aroun' dis niggah's head agin, dat's shoah as yo' libe," he explained to Paul after one of his hurried ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... on the right trail, we had not overtaken them. I was almost in despair, and began to doubt that, even if Malcolm was alive, he could be with them. I had just expressed my fears to Sigenok when one of the scouts came hurrying back and exhibited a tag—the end of a boot-lace, such as my brother had worn. This Sigenok considered a sure sign that Malcolm was with them. My eagerness, therefore, increased to overtake them, but the Indians assured me that great ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... "in church and likewise after the ceremony. Lor'! to hear how the bass viol did tag behind in Rockingham. I can hear him now. 'Twas like two solos being played, as one might say. No unity at all. I never hear that tune now but what it carries me back to my wedding-day and the bass viol; and the taste of that fowl's ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton

... I've got your tag!" I could hear Polly say, and then there was a great scampering of feet and roars of laughter as they chased each other up and down the walks. This was kept up for some ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson

... eaten our fill of the carrots, and then, made heedless by play, we had ventured on to the big trees just beyond. I cannot understand how Lop-Ear got over his habitual caution, but it must have been the play. We were having a great time playing tree tag. And such tag! We leaped ten or fifteen-foot gaps as a matter of course. And a twenty or twenty-five foot deliberate drop clear down to the ground was nothing to us. In fact, I am almost afraid to say the great distances ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... It is a tag of the materialists that the truth about history rubs away the romance of history. It is dear to the modern mind because it is depressing; but it does not happen to be true. Nothing emerges more ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... correlation among such agencies. Beggars often imposed upon a number of different societies by assuming different names. Each society had its own periods of campaigning for funds, a practice which meant an excess of tag-days and campaigns and a waste of time and energy on the part ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... "Why did you tag after me across the yard if it wasn't to fight them? I've often heard that you were usually spoiling for a fight. ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... he, quite miffy like, 'Don't he know the way to court as well as I do? If I thought he didn't, I'd send one of my niggers to show him the road. I wonder who was his lackey last year, that he wants me to be his'n this time. It don't convene to one of our free and enlightened citizens, to tag arter any man, that's a fact; it's too English and too foreign for our glorious institutions. He's bound by law to be there at ten o'clock, and so be I, and we both know the way ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... hardly packed it in when Mother came running breathlessly up the stairs crying that the express wagon was at the door. Hurriedly she put down the trunk lid, locked it, and tied on the tag that Daddy had written ...
— Sunny Boy in the Country • Ramy Allison White

... found, and with the dark brown stain below the knee was almost identical to that which Chip had found on the railroad track, and which the robber had thrown from the express car. Not satisfied with this, Chip ripped up the carpet, and as a reward for his labor found an express tag, or rather a portion of one, for the tag was torn in two pieces. On the tag Chip read the portion of an address, "——ority," and below, "——worth, Kansas." Further questioning of the garrulous landlady gained a description of the valise ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton

... British family without a Belgian was doing its duty. Bishop's wife and publican's wife took whatever Belgian was sent to her. The refugee packet arrived without the nature of contents on the address tag. All Belgians had become heroic and noble by grace of the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... set it down again, and smiled. On the fur coat there was a fifth tag. Not one of the five, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... the dog on his side and found the other pads in the same condition. Running his fingers beneath the ruff, scratching gently in sign of friendship, he discovered a leather collar with a brass tag, rudely engraved, the lettering ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... all the front I had in stock just to tag along as an also ran, but when I thought of the Boss, headin' the procession, I was dead sorry for him. And what kind of a game do you think he hands out? Straight talk, nothin' but! Course he didn't make no family hist'ry out of tellin' who his lady-fren' was, but as ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... air of epigram which Pope gives to the fourth line is characteristic; and the concluding tag, which is quite unauthorized, reminds us irresistibly of one of the rhymes which an actor always spouted to the audience by way of winding up an act in the contemporary drama. Such embroidery is profusely applied by Pope wherever he thinks that Homer, like Diomed, is slumbering too deeply. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... I was much amused by three chipmunks, who seemed to be engaged in some kind of game. It looked very much as if they were playing tag. Round and round they would go, first one taking the lead, then another, all good-natured and gleeful as schoolboys. There is one thing about a chipmunk that is peculiar: he is never more than one jump from home. Make a dive at him anywhere and in he goes. He knows where the hole is, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... 'Twas you engaged me first to write, Then gave the subject out of spite: The journal of a modern dame, Is, by my promise, what you claim. My word is past, I must submit; And yet perhaps you may be bit. I but transcribe; for not a line Of all the satire shall be mine. Compell'd by you to tag in rhymes The common slanders of the times, Of modern times, the guilt is yours, And me my innocence secures. Unwilling Muse, begin thy lay, The annals of a female day. By nature turn'd to play the rake well, (As we shall show you in the sequel,) The ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... just idea of the delicacy, richness, and brilliancy of the living tints. But, happily, the beautiful barn swallow is too familiar to need description. Wheeling about our barns and houses, skimming over the fields, its bright sides flashing in the sunlight, playing "cross tag" with its friends at evening, when the insects, too, are on the wing, gyrating, darting, and gliding through the air, it is no more possible to adequately describe the exquisite grace of a swallow's flight than the glistening buff of its ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... he had said of Flossy Pierson, and Nance, with grim determination, decided to do the same. A fat man in the left hand box had laughed out when she discovered the spotlight. She determined to make him laugh again. Simulating the dismay that at first was genuine, she began to play tag with the shaft of light, dodging it, jumping over it, hiding from it behind the stump, leading it a merry chase from corner to corner. The fat man grew hysterical. The audience laughed at him, and then it began to laugh at Nance. She threw herself into the frolic with the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... said Grace, dropping her own treasures to examine the mysterious packages of her companion. "What does the tag say?" ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown

... was taken to Newgate, and was there confined, almost with the glory and attendance of a State prisoner. This was no common murder, and no common murderer. Nor were they who interested themselves in the matter the ordinary rag, tag, and bobtail of the people,—the mere wives and children, or perhaps fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters of the slayer or the slain. Dukes and Earls, Duchesses and Countesses, Members of the Cabinet, great statesmen, Judges, Bishops, and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... who always sallied forth from Marlborough on that day; and as the manor was not large the ground was generally pretty thickly occupied before sun rise on the first of October; for it will be recollected that, on these gala days, "tag, rag, and bobtail," all had leave, whether they were qualified or not, and all who professed to be sportsmen hurried there, whether they ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... Then they played tag with him all the way up the Lone Little Path to his house, till Danny Meadow Mouse quite forgot that he had wished that his ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... Amu, which rises in the Belur Tag, or Dark Mountains, and running nearly from east to west, splits into two branches; one of which falls into the Caspian Sea, and the other into Aral Nahr, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... more than you can say for the rag-tag of nobility that paid court to Aline Tarnowsy. He was in love with her, but he was a gentleman about it. A ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer

... and sickened me, and I was about to retort when a shout from one of our men drew our attention to the gully below. And there were our terrified Indians peering out cunningly at us like so many foxes playing tag with ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... be remembered as much for the excellent vigour of the latter as for the perfection of the former. Individual damnation or salvation in such a case as hers are matters of strict opinion; but for Lola's brief to the last judgment there is an ancient tag that might never be more aptly appended. Like the moral of her life, it is exceedingly trite—Quia ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... and aquarelles were hanging on the walls, while on the tables, the tagres and the elegant cabinets, thousands of bric brac and bibelots, statuettes, Dresden and Chinese vases, old ivories and Venice pottery peopled the large room with ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... thinks so, either. Why doesn't somebody tell the truth? Why doesn't somebody tell us how a man sees a nice girl and gradually begins to tag after her when business hours are over? A respectable man is busy from eight or nine until five or six. In the evening he's usually at the club, or dining out, or asleep; isn't he? Well, then, how much time does it leave for love? Do the problem yourself in any way you wish; the result ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... street, there was such a racket, such shouting, such blowing of trumpets, that it was deafening. Everywhere groups of boys were gathered together. Some played at marbles, at hopscotch, at ball. Others rode on bicycles or on wooden horses. Some played at blindman's buff, others at tag. Here a group played circus, there another sang and recited. A few turned somersaults, others walked on their hands with their feet in the air. Generals in full uniform leading regiments of cardboard soldiers passed by. Laughter, ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini

... how the cemetery looked that mornin'. It was the tag end o' June—an' in June cemeteries seems like somewheres else. The Sodality hed been tryin' to get a new iron fence, but they hadn't made out then, an' they ain't made out now—an' the old whitewashed fence an' the field stone wall was fair pink with wild roses, an' ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... Julia could have blushed red, before that view, with the memory of the way the forecourt, as she now imagined it, had been dishonored by her younger romps. She had tumbled over the wall with this, that, and the other raw playmate, and had played "tag" and leap-frog, as she might say, from corner to corner. That would be the "history" with which, in case of definite demand, she should be able to supply Mr. French: that she had already, again and again, any occasion offering, chattered and scuffled over ground ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... distress, of religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of humanity—none of us will cease jesting, none cease idling, none put themselves to any wholesome work, none take so much as a tag of lace off their footmen's coats, to save the world? Or does it rather mean, that they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds—yes, and life, if need be? Life!—some of us are ready enough to throw that away, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... with the rest, as he dabbed at his heated, powder-stained countenance. "Come," said he, "that's no fair,—they're as white as I am, then, when I've just scrubbed; and some of them are first-raters, too; none of your rag, tag, and bobtail. There's one I remember, a man from Philadelphia, who walks round like a prince. He's a gentleman, every inch,—and he's rich,—and about the handsomest-looking specimen of humanity I've set eyes upon ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... to a large tag that was fastened to the holly ribbon with which the package was tied. She read aloud, "To my esteemed friend, Hippy, from his humble little ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... he could bring one and have Miss Florence pin a fish in the river and a red tag on his blouse to show ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 10, March 8, 1914 • Various

... Gallants, men and women, And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden, In days of Pimlico ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... everything else, rather than have any nonsense with Tom, who, thanks to his neglected education, was as ignorant as herself of the charms of this new amusement for school-children. So Polly tried to console herself by jumping rope in the back-yard, and playing tag with Maud in the drying-room, where she likewise gave lessons in "nas-gim-nics," as Maud called it, which did that little person good. Fanny came up sometimes to teach them a new dancing step, and more than once was betrayed into a game ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... it? The way people tag at my heels drives me almost crazy sometimes. You wouldn't like to have some one dogging your footsteps from morning until ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett

... a needle; the obsolete English form is "aglet''), originally a tag of metal, often made of precious metals and richly chased, attached to the end of a lace or ribbon, and pointed, so as to pass more easily through eyelet holes. The term was, in time, applied to any bright ornament or pendant ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... good boy, Big Abel, go to sleep," said Dan, flinging himself down upon the pine-tag bed. "Strange how much spirit a sheep can put into a man. I wouldn't run now if I saw Pope's whole ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... hard, and capered like an elf.) Poll held on to his perch, he'd much tenacity of claw, But performed, involuntarily a sort of sharp see-saw, And he snorted and looked down With a very beaky frown, And his round orb grew as red as any carrot. "'We Three'? your Twelfth-Night tag Is mere thrasonic brag. Tschutt! You'll make my tail a rag! Wish you wouldn't pull and drag At my feathers in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various

... been tried of marking the salmon after spawning and watching for their return in after years. After some experiments, the mode finally fixed upon as best was to attach a light platinum tag to the rear margin of the dorsal fin by means of a fine platinum wire. The tags were rolled very thin, cut about half an inch long and stamped with a steel die. The fish marked were dis missed in the month of November. Every time it was tried a considerable number of ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various

... som de matat och tmt, 9 nu voro de flugna, ty hken dem skrmt. Ett par allena var kvar; av de tvenne tag du den ena! ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner

... white they will have nothing but black children. But if one that is hybrid black mate with one that is white, only half of the children will be white; these white children reveal the fact that their black parent was a half breed. Then we can put a tag on that black parent. If proper tags are put on the blacks so as to distinguish between the pure-blooded and the half-blooded—say a blue tag on the hybrids and a black on the thoroughbreds—we shall get exactly the same results as described in the case of the Andalusian ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... "Tag" on the week,—if our friends in front are pleased as they appear to be, then DRURIOLANUS and Council—not the County, but the Covent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various

... associate his name with the humiliation of the French in America than with their brief triumphs. Yet it is quite certain, says Robert de Crevecoeur, his descendant, that he did not return to France with the rag-tag of the defeated army. Quebec fell before Wolfe's attack in September 1759; at some time in the course of the year 1760 we may suppose the young officer to have entered the British colonies; to have adopted his family name of "Saint John" ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... much resembles the market place of a small town. The melodious sounds thence issuing, continually draw tears from the eyes of the Waisters; reminding them of their old paternal pig-pens and potato-patches. They are the tag-rag and bob-tail of the crew; and he who is good for nothing else is good ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... Armenia; that is to say that I am a marked man. And now, as you would inelegantly express it, you have put a tag on me. When I left you in Vienna the other day I lied to you. I am sorry. I should have trusted you, only I did not wish you to risk your life. You would have insisted on ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... tag and high-spy, and a variety of other games. When they were tired of playing, they fell to quarrelling, scolding, and chasing each other among the stiff, varnished leaves, making so much noise that I could not get my afternoon nap, and often had to call to the syce to throw a stone into the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... process of recovering from my long sickness was to find delight in little things, in things unconnected with books and problems, in play, in games of tag in the swimming pool, in flying kites, in fooling with horses, in working out mechanical puzzles. As a result, I grew tired of the city. On the ranch, in the Valley of the Moon, I found my paradise. I gave up living in cities. All ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... although I suppose I am really her assistant. She makes things exciting enough. I think she's a kind of culinary speculator and takes a lot of chances, but she's awfully lucky. She takes all sorts of rag-tag ends of things, chops them into bits and turns ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... young woman doesn't want to come," laughed the senator. "You told me you hadn't got her tag, son, and I'm beginning to believe it's the sure-enough truth. What has she got ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... sorts of games, from tag and jumping rope, to blindman's bluff and hide-and-seek. Snap was made to do a number of tricks, much to the amusement of the teachers and children. Danny Rugg, and some of the older boys, got up a small baseball game, and then Danny, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope

... early in the fall and had mailed it endorsed "please forward" in the care of his New York publishers, so that it had played tag with him, never catching him, over the length of Europe and, after that, had zig-zagged along the cities of the Levant and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... for the battle outside somewhere, and keep your heart young. Give up your whole being to create music everywhere, in the light places and in the dark places, and your life will make melody. I'm a witness to the perfect joy and satisfaction of a single life—with a tail of human tag-rag hanging on. It is rare! It is as exhilarating as an aeroplane or a dirigible or whatever they are that are always trying to get up and are always coming down!... Mine has been such a joyous service," she wrote again. "God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... words of the old-fashioned tag, "If our friends in front are pleased, then Manager and Author are satisfied." But, if objection be still taken to the unreality of the Parliamentary setting of the picture, then "please remember," apologises 'ENRY HAUTHOR, "that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various

... bore. We were not asked to open anything, none of our packages were examined, the declarations of passengers usually being accepted as truthful and final unless the inspectors have reason to believe or suspect deception. Gangs of coolies in livery, each wearing a brass tag with his number, stood by ready to seize the baggage and carry it to the hotel wagons, which stood outside, where we followed it and directed by a polite Sikh policeman, took the first carriage in line. Everything was conducted in a most orderly manner. There was no confusion, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... of the Criterion bar, President of the Rag Tag Club, baronet and detrimental—and all ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... Bolshevist—as who is not in these days? For language is given us not only to conceal thought, but often to prevent it, and every now and then when the problems of the world become too complex and too vital, some one stops all thought on a subject by inventing a tag, like "witch" in the seventeenth century, or "Bolshevist" ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller

... the way place, depends solely upon the great prison that stands in its midst. We marched along beneath the huge wall that forms one side of the main street; it rose in places fifteen feet above our heads. Dust! dust! A school was let out; its scholars came streaming uphill to watch us, and to tag along beside us even after we had turned away from the great hospital of the prison, and were once more amid farms. Other school children were waiting for us along the road. We saw very little of the buzzard in this population; they handed or threw us apples, and the boys ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... tag-rag we have here! What would the queen care for all them portrait-painters, and poets, and engineers, and writing vagabonds, as old Pits is eternally feeding? The queen knows a mighty sight better, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... missus' gayest clothes, Her muslin dress all fluty, Her waterfall and tag-rags all, Which well ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various

... list of over a hundred of these vestigial structures, and though this number is perhaps too high, there is no doubt that the list is long. In the inner upper corner of the eye there is a minute tag—but larger in some races than in others—which is the last dwindling relic of the third eyelid, used in cleaning the front of the eye, which most mammals possess in a large and well-developed form. It can be easily seen, for instance, in ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... bullying or even of teasing, except of a very good-natured kind, no quarreling and next to no disputing. Yet they are sturdy little things and no mollycoddles. To see a boy of ten or twelve playing tag and jumping ditches with a boy strapped to his back is a sight. There are no public rebukes or scoldings of the children or even cross words, to say nothing of slappings, no nagging, at least not in public. Some would say ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... 'Banty.' That's a great name!" exclaimed the tall Britisher. "You're lucky! What would you do if you were handicapped with a tag like mine—Constantine—with all the dubs at school calling you 'Tiny' for short, while you stood a good five feet nine in your socks? Isn't ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... eignes, eitles, leeres Ich Sei jeden Tag geringer. O rd ich jeden Tag durch dich ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... within two blocks of the address on the tag, and Bud walked through thickening fog and dusk to the place. Foster had a good-looking house, he observed. Set back on the middle of two lots, it was, with a cement drive sloping up from the street ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower



Words linked to "Tag" :   hunt, hound, dog, calibrate, give chase, poesy, label, child's game, mark, name tag, name, shred, rhyme, trademark, chase, price tag, piece of material, rag, quest, tag on, call, rime, tag end, nab, trail, track, follow, tree, pine-tar rag, badge, tag along, touching, touch, tag line, tatter, brandmark, ticket, baseball game, pursue, poetry, go after, chase after, baseball, trace, tail, code, verse, run down, brand, point



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