Nag

How to spell nag

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nag

What does nag mean?

1. verbTo pester or annoy someone with persistent reminders, complaints, or requests.
2. nounA persistent feeling of worry or doubt that keeps returning.
3. nounAn old, worn-out, or inferior horse.

Nag in a sentence

• verb

  His parents continued to nag him about finding a steady job.

• noun

  A small nag of doubt stayed with him during the whole journey.

• noun

  The farmer kept an old nag that was no longer fit for heavy work.

• verb

  A sticky note on the fridge can nag you into paying the bill on time.

• noun

  There was a constant nag at the back of her mind about the locked door.

• noun

  The riding school sold the ageing nag to a quiet country home.

Where does nag come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The verb 'nag', meaning to pester someone with constant complaints, arrived in English from a Scandinavian source, comparable to the Norwegian and Swedish dialect word 'nagga', which meant 'to gnaw', 'to nibble', or 'to irritate'. The underlying idea is vivid and useful for remembering the spelling: a nagging person figuratively gnaws away at you with small, repeated bites of complaint, just as the related Old Norse 'gnaga' described gnawing at something physical. The word does not appear in written English until the early 1800s, which is surprisingly late and suggests it lived a long time as spoken, regional speech before being recorded. The unrelated noun 'nag' for a worn-out or inferior horse is older, attested from the 1400s, and is of obscure origin, possibly imitative or Low German in background. Because the word is short, blunt, and entirely phonetic, with a single hard 'g', it carries no spelling trap of the kind that catches educated writers.

How the word is built

• nag (single root; from a Scandinavian verb meaning 'to gnaw' or 'to bite')