dreg

See also: drèg and Dreg

English

Etymology

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

• enPR: drĕg, IPA^(key): /ˈdɹɛɡ/, [ˈdɹ̝ʷɛɡ]; [ˈd̠ɹ̠˔ʷɛɡ]

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (/ɡ/-tensing)
  • (Upper Midwestern US, Northwestern US, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈdɹeɪ̯ɡ/, [ˈdɹ̝ʷeɪ̯ɡ]; [ˈd̠ɹ̠˔ʷeɪ̯ɡ]
• Rhymes: -ɛɡ
• Hyphenation: dreg
• Homophone: drag (æ-raising)

Noun

dreg (countable and uncountable, plural dregs) (chiefly in the plural)

1. singular of dregs (“sediment in a liquid”)

   to the last dreg

   • c. 1602 (date written), 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, [Act III, scene ii]:

     What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

   • 1768, William Hayley, “On the Fear of Death, An Epistle to a Lady”, in Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects, published 1818:

     O! be the cup of joy to thee consign'd, / Of joy unmix'd, without a dreg behind!

   • 1915, George Washington Crile, “address delivered at the Massachusetts General Hospital 15 Oct 1910”, in The Origin and Nature of Emotions:

     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.

   • 1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 190:

     “Ay, thou doubter! Ay thou disbelieving dreg!”

Derived terms

• dreggish
• dreggy
• dregless
• tofu-dreg

References

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.048

Anagrams

• GERD, derg, regd

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

dreg

1. present of dra

Romanian

Verb

dreg

1. inflection of drege:
   1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. third-person plural present indicative