Cant. [f. LAG v.3]
1. A convict who has been transported or sentenced to penal servitude.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Lag, a convict under sentence of transportation.
1828. ‘Jon Bee,’ Living Pict. Lond., 39. A few are ‘returned lags.’
1887. Westm. Rev., June, 383. It was no uncommon thing to see an old ‘lag’ enlarged for good conduct.
1894. H. Nisbet, Bush Girl’s Rom., 232. As Wildrake was walking along the beach, he met a lag who had got his ticket-of-leave.
2. A term of transportation or penal servitude.
1821. Haggart, Life, 84. Another prisoner … under sentence of lag for fourteen stretch.
1896. Daily News, 13 May, 9/5, I have had a look round with another man who did a lag with me.
3. Comb.: lag-fever, -ship (see quots.).
1811. Lex. Balatron., Lag-fever, a term of ridicule applied to men who being under sentence of transportation, pretend illness, to avoid being sent from gaol to the hulks.
1812. J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict., Lag ship, a transport chartered by government for the conveyance of convicts to New South Wales; also a hulk or floating prison.
