Lag
WordNet
noun
(1) The act of slowing down or falling behind
(2) One of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket
(3) The time between one event, process, or period and another
"Meanwhile the socialists are running the government"
verb
(4) Cover with lagging to prevent heat loss
"Lag pipes"
(5) Throw or pitch at a mark, as with coins
(6) Hang (back) or fall (behind) in movement, progress, development, etc.
(7) Lock up or confine, in or as in a jail
"The suspects were imprisoned without trial"
"The murderer was incarcerated for the rest of his life"
WiktionaryText
Quotations
- 1592: Some tardy cripple bore the countermand, / That came too lag to see him buried. — William Shakespeare, King Richard III
Noun
- a gap; an interval created by something not keeping up
- a prisoner, a criminal.
- bad connection, loss of connection, causing a delay
Quotations
- 2004: During the Second World War, for instance, the Washington Senators had a starting rotation that included four knuckleball pitchers. But, still, I think that some of that was just a generational lag. — The New Yorker Online, 10 May 2004
Verb
- to not keep up (the pace), to fall behind
- to cover (for example, pipes) with felt strips or similar material
- The action in which a computer or server slows or halts in response to a poor connection
Quotations
to fail to keep up
- 1587???: Lazy beast! / Why last art thou now? Thou hast never used / To lag thus hindmost — George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer
- 1596: Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, / That lasie seemd in being ever last, / Or wearied with bearing of her bag / Of needments at his backe. — Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Canto I
- 1798: Brown skeletons of leaves that lag / My forest-brook along — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in seven parts, 1798
Construction: to lag behind
- ???: While he, whose tardy feet had lagg'd behind, / Was doom'd the sad reward of death to find. — The Metamorphoses of Ovid translated into English verse under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other eminent hands
- 2004: Over the next fifty years, by most indicators dear to economists, the country remained the richest in the world. But by another set of numbers—longevity and income inequality—it began to lag behind Northern Europe and Japan. — The New Yorker, 5 April 2004
to cover with felt strips
- 1974???: Outside seems old enough: / Red brick, lagged pipes, and someone walking by it / Out to the car park, free. — Philip Larkin, The Building