Library / English Dictionary

LAG

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected forms: lagged    , lagging   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of slowing down or falling behind

Synonyms:

lag; retardation; slowdown

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("lag" is a kind of...):

delay; holdup (the act of delaying; inactivity resulting in something being put off until a later time)

Derivation:

lag (hang (back) or fall (behind) in movement, progress, development, etc.)

Sense 2

Meaning:

One of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket

Synonyms:

lag; stave

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("lag" is a kind of...):

slat; spline (a thin strip (wood or metal))

Holonyms ("lag" is a part of...):

barrel; cask (a cylindrical container that holds liquids)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The time between one event, process, or period and another

Example:

meanwhile the socialists are running the government

Synonyms:

interim; lag; meantime; meanwhile

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("lag" is a kind of...):

interval; time interval (a definite length of time marked off by two instants)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "lag"):

interregnum (the time between two reigns, governments, etc.)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cover with lagging to prevent heat loss

Example:

lag pipes

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "lag" is one way to...):

cover (provide with a covering or cause to be covered)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

lagging (insulation used to wrap around pipes or boilers or laid in attics to prevent loss of heat)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Throw or pitch at a mark, as with coins

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "lag" is one way to...):

flip; pitch; sky; toss (throw or toss with a light motion)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Sense 3

Meaning:

Hang (back) or fall (behind) in movement, progress, development, etc.

Synonyms:

dawdle; fall back; fall behind; lag

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "lag" is one way to...):

follow (to travel behind, go after, come after)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "lag"):

drag; drop back; drop behind; get behind; hang back; trail (to lag or linger behind)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

lag (the act of slowing down or falling behind)

laggard; lagger (someone who takes more time than necessary; someone who lags behind)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Lock up or confine, in or as in a jail

Example:

the murderer was incarcerated for the rest of his life

Synonyms:

gaol; immure; imprison; incarcerate; jail; jug; lag; put away; put behind bars; remand

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "lag" is one way to...):

confine; detain (deprive of freedom; take into confinement)

Domain category:

jurisprudence; law (the collection of rules imposed by authority)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to lag the prisoners

Credits

 Context examples: 

On the leading strand, replication occurs continuously in a 5 to 3 direction, whereas on the lagging strand, DNA replication occurs discontinuously by synthesis and joining of short Okazaki fragments.

(DNA Replication Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

This cycle runs autonomously in the cell, causing jet lag during travel, but can be regulated to retrain to changes in the light cycle.

(Circadian Rhythm Pathway BioCarta, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)

Thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when Miss Murdstone said: “Here's the last day off!” and gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This discovery, which identifies a direct dopamine neuron connection to the circadian center, is possibly the first step toward the development of unique drugs, targeting specific neurons, to combat the unpleasant symptoms of jet-lag and shiftwork, as well as several dangerous pathologies.

(Neurons That Control Brain's Body Clock Identified, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

If rhythms in different organs are out of sync, do plants suffer from a kind of internal jet lag?

(Plants can tell time even without a brain, University of Cambridge)

The lag would act like a brake on Pluto, causing its rotation to slow while transferring that rotational energy to Charon, making it speed up and move farther away from Pluto.

(Cracks in Pluto's moon could indicate it once had an underground ocean, NASA)

Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out: Oh, papa, what news—what news?

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

By shifting the light schedules of the two groups by six hours, a jet-lag effect, they found that the dopamine-disrupted animals took much longer to resynchronize to the six-hour time shift, indicating feedback between the dopamine neurons and the circadian center.

(Neurons That Control Brain's Body Clock Identified, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Neurons in the brain that produce the pleasure-signaling neurotransmitter dopamine also directly control the brain's circadian center, or body clock — the area that regulates eating cycles, metabolism and waking/resting cycles — a key link that possibly affects the body's ability to adapt to jet lag and rotating shift work, a new University of Virginia study has demonstrated.

(Neurons That Control Brain's Body Clock Identified, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)