hag

noun

1. A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a female wizard.

   “And that olde hag that with a staffe his staggering lymbes dooth stay”

   “Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched.”

2. (derogatory)An ugly old woman.

   “The elder women were literally "old hags" - lean and shrivelled, and excessively ugly.”

3. (derogatory)An evil woman.

   “I don't plan to stop drinking. But... I don't wanna forget. I can't turn away anymore. So, if I'm gonna die, well, it might as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderous hag.”

4. (US, derogatory, slang, sometimes)A woman.
5. A fury; a she-monster.

   “Fourth of the cursed knot of hags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell's shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution”

6. A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
7. A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
8. (obsolete)An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair.

   “Flamma lambentes (or those we call Haggs) are made of Sweat or some other Vapour issuing out of the Head; a not-unusuall sight amongst us when we ride by night in the Summer time: They are extinguisht, like flames, by shaking the Horse Mains”

9. The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
10. (slang, uncountable)Sleep paralysis.
11. (Northern-England)A small wood, or part of a wood or copse, which is marked off or enclosed for felling, or which has been felled.

    “This said, he led me over hoults and hags; / Through thorns and bushes scant my legs I drew”

12. A marshy hollow, especially an area of peat lying lower than surrounding moorland, formed by erosion of a gully or cutting and often having steep edges.

    “And they likewise ordained […] that all the warp should be thrown into the Common wayes, to fill up haggs and lakes, where need was, upon a great penalty, where it should ly neer the Common rode.”

    “[…] upon wet brae-sides, peat-haggs, and flow-mosses, […]”

    “The uplands are generally mossy, resting on clay of a yellow colour, covered by moss of various depths, which often break into what are called hags, or flow-moss.”

    “[…] I had made sure to find him in the hag o' Coars-Neuk Moor, […]”

    “The strongest nag that crosses th' hagg / Wi wots ta Fullod mill.”

verb

1. To cut or erode (as) a hag (a hollow into moorland).

   “hag […] is that part in mosses which is naturally or artificially cut, hollowed, hagged, or hacked; naturally by water runlets forming hollows, and artificially by, among other means, the cutting and removal of peat.”

   “Covenanters too met often on our moss-hagged moors.”

   “[…] on one occasion, where the bog had been cut away, a stump was discovered which bore evident marks of having been hagged [hacked].”

   “Crowberry is particularly abundant on hagged peat and in cotton grass mires; it prefers drier ground, […]”

2. (transitive)To harass; to weary with vexation.

   “How are Superstitious Men Hagg'd Out of their Wits and Senses, with the Fancy of Omens, Forebodings, Old Wives Tales, and Visions”