subs. (old: now recognised).—1. A witch. Whence (2) an ugly old woman; a she-monster. Also (3) a nightmare. At Charterhouse, a female of any description; at Winchester, a matron. Hence, HAG-RIDDEN = troubled with nightmare. HAG-BORN = witch-born. HAG-SEED (Shakespeare, Tempest) = spawned of a witch. HAG-FACED = foul-featured. In another sense, HAGS = spots of firm ground in a moss or bog.
d. 1529. SKELTON, How the Douty Duke of Albany, etc., l. 295. Lyke a Scottyshe HAG.
1606. Wily Beguiled [DODSLEY, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, ix., 277]. Like to some hellish HAG or some damned fiend.
1608. SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, iv. 1. How now, you secret, black, and midnight HAGS!
1627. DRAYTON, The Moon-calf (CHALMERS, English Poets, 1810, iv., 133). The filthy HAG, abhorring of the light.
1632. JONSON, The Magnetic Lady, v. 9. Com. Out, HAG.
1637. JONSON, The Sad Shepherd, ii., 2.
| As if you knew the sport of witch-hunting, | |
| Or starting of a HAG. |
1680. COTTON, Poems, etc., ‘To Poet E.W.’ Adulterate HAGS, fit for a common stew.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v.
1748. J. THOMSON, Castle of Indolence, i., 73. Fierce fiends, and HAGS of hell, their only nurses were.
1773–83. HOOLE, trans. Orlando Furioso, xliii., 998.
| But such a HAG to paradise convey’d, | |
| Had wither’d by her looks the blissful shade. |
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xliii. Hatteraick himself, and the gypsy sailor, and that old HAG.
1892. HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 89. Old women were there also, with hideous vice-stamped features, veritable HAGS all of them.
YOUR HAGSHIP! phr. (common).—In contempt (of women).
