Synonyms for old bag


Grammar : Noun
Spell : bag
Phonetic Transcription : bæg


Définition of old bag

Origin :
  • c.1200, bagge, from Old Norse baggi or a similar Scandinavian source; not found in other Germanic languages, perhaps ultimately of Celtic origin. Disparaging slang for "woman" dates from 1924 (though various specialized senses of this are much older). Meaning "person's area of interest or expertise" is 1964, from Black English slang, from jazz sense of "category," probably via notion of putting something in a bag.
  • To be left holding the bag (and presumably nothing else), "cheated, swindled" is attested by 1793. Many figurative senses are from the notion of the game bag (late 15c.) into which the product of the hunt was placed; e.g. the verb meaning "to kill game" (1814) and its colloquial extension to "catch, seize, steal" (1818). To let the cat out of the bag "reveal the secret" is from 1760.
  • noun old woman
Example sentences :
  • Let us see, old bag of bones; let us see what it is that you have under your arm!
  • Extract from : « The White Company » by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • The girl did not reply, twisting her hands on an old bag in her lap.
  • Extract from : « The Island Pharisees » by John Galsworthy
  • We'll make a sieve of holes of you, you old bag of treachery!
  • Extract from : « The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays » by William B. Yeats
  • I then visited the garret, where my mother said I would find the old bag.
  • Extract from : « Twenty Years of Hus'ling » by J. P. Johnston
  • Put him outside, and let the old bag of bones go to the foreign devils.
  • Extract from : « The Blue Dragon » by Kirk Munroe
  • And don't you knock under to that old bag of bones too much.
  • Extract from : « Moth and Rust » by Mary Cholmondeley
  • Some of these bullets have punctured the old bag aloft, as sure as you live.
  • Extract from : « The North Pacific » by Willis Boyd Allen
  • There was an old bag which she remembered he said contained some of his mother's dresses.
  • Extract from : « Gabriel Conroy » by Bert Harte
  • Old bag of bones making curries for men who do not ask "Who cooked this?"
  • Extract from : « Kim » by Rudyard Kipling
  • Trimmer obeyed his master, ignoring Mrs. Swinton, and lifted the old bag of bones with a jerk that seemed to rattle it.
  • Extract from : « The Scarlet Feather » by Houghton Townley

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Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019