Lagging

How to spell lagging

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lagging

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lagging mean?

1. adjectiveFalling behind or developing more slowly than expected or than others.
2. nounInsulating material wrapped around pipes, tanks, or boilers to reduce heat loss.

Lagging in a sentence

• adjective

  Sales in the northern region were lagging behind the rest of the country.

• noun

  The plumber replaced the worn lagging around the hot water tank.

• adjective

  A lagging economy made it hard for the firm to hire new staff.

• noun

  Old foam lagging on the loft pipes had crumbled away.

Where does lagging come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

This word is built on the verb 'lag', which first appears in English in the 1500s meaning to hang back, to come last, or to move more slowly than others. The origin of 'lag' is genuinely uncertain; it may have begun as a dialect or playful word, and it was once paired with 'fog' and 'seg' in a children's counting rhyme where 'lag' marked the last person. Some scholars suspect a Scandinavian source related to slowness or sluggishness, but no clear single ancestor has been pinned down, so the spelling cannot be traced back to a tidy root. By adding '-ing', English formed both the ongoing-action sense (something that is falling behind) and a concrete noun: the material wrapped around pipes and boilers to slow the loss of heat, a sense that grew in Britain during the industrial age when 'to lag' a pipe meant to delay heat escaping. The doubled 'g' is the spelling point to remember: a short single vowel before a single consonant doubles the consonant when '-ing' is added, just as in 'begging' or 'tagging'.

How the word is built

• lag (to fall behind, to move slowly)
• -ing (verbal/noun suffix)