scrag, n. [Cf. dial. Sw. skraka a great dry tree, a long, lean man, Gael. sgreagach dry, shriveled, rocky. See Shrink, and cf. Scrog, Shrag, n.].

Something thin, lean, or rough; a bony piece; especially, a bony neckpiece of meat; hence, humorously or in contempt, the neck. [1913 Webster]
"Lady MacScrew, who . . . serves up a scrag of mutton on silver." [1913 Webster]
A rawboned person. Halliwell. [1913 Webster]
A ragged, stunted tree or branch. [1913 Webster]

Scrag whale (Zoöl.), a North Atlantic whalebone whale (Agaphelus gibbosus). By some it is considered the young of the right whale.

scrag, v. t. [Cf. Scrag.].

To seize, pull, or twist the neck of; specif., to hang by the neck; to kill by hanging.

"An enthusiastic mob will scrag me to a certainty the day war breaks out." [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

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OXFORD DICTIONARY

scrag, n. & v.
--n.
1 (also scrag-end) the inferior end of a neck of mutton.
2 a skinny person or animal.
3 colloq. a person's neck.
--v.tr. (scragged, scragging) sl.
1 strangle, hang.
2 seize roughly by the neck.
3 handle roughly; beat up.

Etymology

perh. alt. f. dial. crag neck, rel. to MDu. craghe, MLG krage

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THESAURUS

scrag

KO, and quarter, call off, cancel, complete, delete, dispose of, draw, drop the curtain, end off, expunge, extinguish, finalize, finish, fold up, get it over, get over with, get through with, gibbet, give the quietus, hang, kayo, kibosh, kill, knock out, liquidate, lynch, neck, noose, perfect, polish off, put paid to, rackabones, shoot down, stack of bones, stretch, string up, turn, wipe out, zap

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ROGET THESAURUS

scrag

Smallness

N smallness, littleness, tenuity, paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance), mediocrity, moderation, small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace, minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight, whit, tittle, shade, shadow, spark, scintilla, gleam, touch, cast, grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau, screed, smack, tinge, tincture, inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet, flitter, gobbet, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive, snip, snippet, snick, snack, snatch, slip, scrag, chip, chipping, shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair, nutshell, thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean, animalcule, trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity, small, little, diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable, paltry, faint, slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited, meager, sparing, few, low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb, halfway, moderate, modest, tender, subtle, inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small, atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent, to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly, imperceptibly, miserably, wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly, faintly, passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about, thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand, dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, small sands the mountain, moments make the year.

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