[f. TAG sb.1]
1. trans. To furnish or mark with or as with a tag (in various senses).
[1436, 1503: see TAGGING.].
1627. W. Hawkins, Apollo Shroving, II. I. 20. What did you giue me? Nothing but a dozen of rotten silke points. You must tagge them better ere I trusse vp your request.
1630. Davenant, Just Ital., Wks. (1673), 455. I must e’en go tag Points in a Garret.
1705. Hudibras Rediv., IV. vi. Their Hair tagg’d with Pearls of Sweat.
1707. in W. McDowall, Hist. Dumfries (1873), 461. The expense of tagging, tongueing, transporting and hanging of the said three bells.
1800. Watkins, Biog. Dict., s.v. Bobart, Mr. Granger says that on rejoicing days he used to tag his beard with silver.
1842. Tennyson, St. Sim. Styl., 31. All my beard Was tagg’d with icy fringes in the moon.
1899. Conan Doyle, Duet, iv. 41. The dim watery … sunlight … tagged all her wandering curls with a coppery gleam.
b. To furnish with a tag, tab, or label; to label.
(In quot. 1907 to patch, as with a label.)
1883. Fisheries Exh. Catal., 203. Photographs … showing … the … tagging the fish, and the process of manipulation of the eggs and young fish at the hatchery.
1896. Daily News, 30 Jan., 3/7. After inspection each animal will be tagged and described so that identification will be easily made upon landing.
1907. Macmillan’s Mag., May, 540. The … cloak of brown sackcloth, sometimes tagged here and there with red and green.
1908. Daily Chron., 26 Feb., 8/5. They should be … wrapped in tissue paper and tagged, so that their covering need not be disturbed in a search for any particular colour.
c. To furnish (a speech or composition) with a verbal tag, or tags, as quotations; to supply (prose or blank verse) with rimes.
1687. Reflect. on Hind & Panther, 32. He hath put them into an unusual dress, and hath tagg’d ’em with Rhimes.
1690. Waller’s Poems, II. Pref. Really Verse in those days was but down-right prose, tag’d with rhymes.
a. 1696. Aubrey, Lives (1898), II. 72 (Milton). Dreyden … went to him to have leave to putt his Paradise Lost into a drama in rhymne. Mr. Milton recieved him civilly, and told him he would give him leave to tagge his verses.
1714. Pope, Wife of Bath, 109. And tag each sentence with My life! my dear!’
1823. Examiner, 705/2. Canning tags his speeches with poetry.
1841. D’Israeli, Amen. Lit. (1867), 369. The Scriptures … were tagged with rhymes for ballads.
2. To append as an addition or afterthought; to fasten, tack on, or add as a tag to something. (Chiefly of things non-material.)
1704. Swift, Tale Tub, ii. (1709), 39. To this system of Religion were tagged several Subaltern Doctrines.
1785. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot. (1794), 10. The barbarous custom … of tagging new names to the old ones.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, i. 1. Before the time when a gallant action or two tagged half of the letters of the alphabet to a man’s name like the tail of a paper kite.
1839–40. W. Irving, Wolfert’s R., vi. (1855), 87. They could not help expressing their wonder … why the duke should have tagged this supernumerary day to the end of the year.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair (Bef. Curtain). I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of ‘Vanity Fair.’
† 3. To fasten, stitch, or tack together; to join. Also fig. Obs. (exc. as in b.)
1681. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 34 (1713), I. 222. He … has a great share of the Joyner’s Trade in tagging Ends of Sedition.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, III. 777. His clothes were tagg’d with thorns; and filth his limbs besmear’d.
1706. De Foe, Jure Div., VII. 140. Tagging Fig-leaf-Vests, To hide his Body from the Sight of Beasts.
17[?]. Swift (J.). Resistance, and the succession of the house of Hanover, the whig writers perpetually tag together.
b. To join or string together (verses, rhymes).
1720. Mrs. Manley, Power of Love (1741), p. viii. Adjusted into proper Periods, with necessary Monosyllables to tag them together.
1752. Fielding, Amelia, VIII. v. I have been sometimes longer in tagging a couple, than I have been in writing a speech.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, III. vii. 159. He writes verses,—tags rhymes.
1887. Lowell, Democr., 207. It shows a pretty knack at tagging verses.
c. intr. To serve as a tag (in a verse, etc.).
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, lxxiv. Thetis, who Is either Tethys or as good—both tag.
4. intr. To trail or drag behind; to follow closely, follow in one’s train.
1676. Wycherley, Pl. Dealer, I. i. I hate a harness, and will not tag on in a faction, kissing my leader behind, that another slave may do the like to me.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 596. They range the world with a boisterous rabble tagging at their heels.
c. 1794. Search after Perfect., I. iv., in New Brit. Theatre (1814), III. 55. Why should a nurse and child come tagging after her?
1902. Eliz. L. Banks, Newspaper Girl, 24. I’m an American girl and can take care of myself, and I won’t have anybody tagging round after me.
b. trans. To follow closely, to dog.
1884. C. H. Farnham, in Harper’s Mag., Feb., 394/1. The Indians are wandering…, tagged at their heels by death and starvation.
† 5. intr. To hang down or trail like a tag. Obs.
1617. J. Moore, Mappe Mans Mortalitie, II. viii. 153. They which weare long garments … doe take and gird them vp, lest they should tag in the way.
6. trans. To cut off tags from (sheep).
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), I. 243. Before they are shorn, great care ought to be taken to tag them, as they call it, which is to clip away the Wooll of their Tails, and behind that the Dung may not hang on it.
a. 1890. [implied in TAGGING].
