dag — ODE · Shobdo

dag /daɡ

▸ noun

1 (dags) Australian and New Zealand English a lock of wool matted with dung hanging from the hindquarters of a sheep.

2 Australian and New Zealand English informal an entertainingly eccentric person; a character:

your father must have been a bit of a dag.

3 Australian English informal a staid or socially inept person.

▪ an untidy or dirty-looking person.

▸ verb

( dags, dagging, dagged)

[with object] Australian and New Zealand English cut dags from (a sheep):

we failed to have the ewes dagged.

– PHRASES

rattle one's dags Australian and New Zealand English informal
hurry up:

we'd better rattle our dags fixing that model

rattle your dags, girl!.

– ORIGIN late Middle English (denoting a hanging pointed part of something): possibly related to tag1. dag (sense 1 of the noun) dates from the early 17th century; dag (sense 2 of the noun) is a transferred use of English dialect meaning ‘a challenge’.