lag (1) — ONAD

lag1 /laɡ, læɡ

▸ verb

(lags, lagging, lagged)

[no object]

1 fall behind in movement, progress, or development; not keep pace with another or others:

they stopped to wait for one of the children who was lagging behind.

2 Billiards, North American [no object] determine the order of play by striking the cue ball from balk to rebound off the top cushion, first stroke going to the player whose ball comes to rest nearer the bottom cushion.

▸ noun

1 (also time lag) a period of time between one event or phenomenon and another:

there was a time lag between the commission of the crime and its reporting to the police.

2 Physics a retardation in an electric current or movement.

– DERIVATIVES
lagger

– ORIGIN early 16th century (as a noun in the sense ‘hindmost person in a game, race, etc.’, also ‘dregs’): related to the dialect adjective lag (perhaps from a fanciful distortion of last1, or of Scandinavian origin: compare with Norwegian dialect lagga ‘go slowly’).