dreg
English edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Old Norse dregg (“sediment”), from Proto-Germanic *dragjō (whence also Icelandic dregg, Swedish drägg), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrā́ks (“sediment”); see also Latin fraces (“lees of oil”), Albanian ndrag (“to make dirty, foul”), dra (“sediments of dairy products or liquids”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
dreg (countable and uncountable, plural dregs) (chiefly in the plural)
Quotations edit
- c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?
- 1768:O! be the cup of joy to thee consign'd, / Of joy unmix'd, without a dreg behind! — William Hayley, from 'On the Fear of Death, An Epistle to a Lady, 1768', in Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects 1818.
- 1910: Fear and trauma may drain to the last dreg the dischargeable nervous energy, and, therefore, the greatest possible exhaustion may be produced by fear and trauma. George W. Crile. in an address delivered at the Massachusetts General Hospital 15 Oct 1910, collected in The Origin and Nature of Emotions
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
sediment in a liquid
|
the lowest and most worthless part of something
References edit
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.048
Anagrams edit
Norwegian Nynorsk edit
Verb edit
dreg
Romanian edit
Verb edit
dreg
- inflection of drege: