subs. (Winchester football).—An off-side kick: also as verb.

1

  c. 1840.  MANSFIELD, School-Life at Winchester College (1866), 237. TAG … When a player has kicked the ball well forward, and has followed it, if it was then kicked back again behind him by the other side, he was then obliged to return to his original position with his own side. If the ball had, in the meantime, been again kicked in front of him, before he regained his position, and he was to kick it, it would be considered unfair, and he would be said TO TAG.

2

  TAG, RAG, AND BOBTAIL. See RAG, senses 1, 2, 3, and add the following quots.

3

  1596.  SPENSER, A View of the Present State of Ireland. They all came in both TAGGE AND RAGGE.

4

  1610.  JONSON, The Alchemist, i. 5.

          Love.  Gallants, men and women,
And of all sorts, TAG-RAG.

5

  1637.  HEYWOOD, The Royal King, i. 1 [PEARSON, Works (1894), vi. 14]. Stood I but in the midst of my followers, I might say I had nothing about me but TAGGE AND RAGGE.

6

  1831.  GREVILLE, Memoirs, 19 Jan. He [William IV.] lives a strange life at Brighton, with TAGRAG AND BOBTAIL about him, and always open house.

7

  1837.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends, II. 109, ‘Netley Abbey.’ TAG, RAG, AND BOBTAIL are capering there.

8