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The Dark History of Waggish
One who is waggish acts like a wag. What, then, is a wag? It has nothing to do with a dog’s tail; in this case a wag is a clever person prone to joking. Though light-hearted in its use and meaning, the probable source of this particular wag is grim: it is thought to be short for waghalter, an obsolete English word that translates as gallows bird, a gallows bird being someone thought to be deserving of hanging. The wag in waghalter is the familiar wag having to do with movement, and halter is another word for a noose.
Examples of waggish in a Sentence
Natasha Gural, Forbes, 12 Jan. 2025
After publishing a New York Times piece about grieving her late husband, the waggish writer received an email from a kindly old acquaintance who was also recently widowed.
—Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2024
He’s left a distinctive stamp on the orchestra’s sound in the years since, whether declaiming the beginning of Mahler 5 with a preacher’s conviction or, as in a recent Ravinia concert, tossing off a ragtime solo with waggish virtuosity.
—Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 5 Aug. 2024
Foreman’s own work was waggish, so the Off Off Broadway Wooster production is frequently tongue-in-cheek.
—Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 13 Apr. 2024
The three children of Leonard Bernstein uphold their father’s legacy with waggish exuberance.
—Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
His simple line drawings—in contrast with painterly images more common to the times—and waggish humor also made way for the eerie and fanciful later work of William Steig and ultimately for the refinement of Saul Steinberg’s sharp wit.
—Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2023
That is an untitled image by the waggish Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, from 1999, and the poor guy being displayed, with a heretical hint of crucifixion, is a gallery owner from Milan—a kindred spirit for Nemo, who is equally stuck.
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 17 Mar. 2023
Trendy, vapid Chazelle sentimentalized a token Mexican immigrant in Babylon, but Jordan and waggish co-screenwriter William Monahan, who scripted Scorsese’s The Departed, plays with ethnicity (those Irish mugs, Lange’s perfect brogue, and Cumming’s perfect Southern twang).
—Armond White, National Review, 17 Feb. 2023
Cite this Entry
“Waggish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/waggish. Accessed 4 May. 2025.
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waggish
adjective
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