hag

Etymology 1

From Middle English hagge, hegge (“demon, old woman”), shortening of Old English hægtesse, hægtes (“harpy, witch”), from Proto-West Germanic *hagatusi, from Proto-Germanic *hagatusjō. See also Saterland Frisian Häkse (“witch”), Dutch heks, German Hexe (“witch”), Old Norse hagr (“handy, skillful”), Middle High German behac (“pleasurable”); also compare dialectal Norwegian tysja (“fairy, she-elf”). Doublet of hex, Sanskrit शक्नोति (śaknóti, “he can”).

noun

1. A witch, sorceress, or enchantress; a wizard.
   And that olde hag that with a staffe his staggering lymbes dooth stay 1565, Arthur Golding (tr.), The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ouidius Nasos worke intitled Metamorphosis, London: William Seres, The Fovrthe Booke
2. (derogatory) An ugly old woman.
   The elder women were literally "old hags" - lean and shrivelled, and excessively ugly. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 67
3. (derogatory) An evil woman.
   I don't plan to stop drinking. But... I don't wanna forget. I can't turn away anymore. So, if I'm gonna die, well, it might as well be driving my sword through the heart of that murderous hag. 2017, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, directed by Taika Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok, spoken by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson)
4. A fury; a she-monster.
   Fourth of the cursed knot of hags is she / Or rather all the other three in one; / Hell's shop of slaughter she does oversee, / And still assist the execution 1646, Richard Crashaw, “Sospetto D' Herode”, in Steps to the Temple, stanza 37
5. A hagfish; one of various eel-like fish of the family Myxinidae, allied to the lamprey, with a suctorial mouth, labial appendages, and a single pair of gill openings.
6. A hagdon or shearwater; one of various sea birds of the genus Puffinus.
7. (obsolete) An appearance of light and fire on a horse's mane or a person's hair.
   Flamma lambentes (or those we call Haggs) are made of Sweat or some other Vapour issuing out of the Head; a not-unusuall sight amongst us when we ride by night in the Summer time: They are extinguisht, like flames, by shaking the Horse Mains 1656, Thomas White, Peripateticall Institutions, page 149
8. The fruit of the hagberry, Prunus padus.
9. (uncountable, slang) Sleep paralysis.

Etymology 2

Middle English (denoting a gap in a cliff), from Old Norse hǫgg (“cut, gap, breach”), derivative of hǫggva (“to hack, hew”). Compare English hew, Old Swedish hug (“blow, stroke”).

noun

1. (Northern England) A small wood, or part of a wood or copse, which is marked off or enclosed for felling, or which has been felled.
   This said, he led me over hoults and hags; / Through thorns and bushes scant my legs I drew 1845, Edward Fairfax (tr.), Godfrey of Bulloigne; or, The Recovery of Jerusalem: Done into English Heroical Verse, page 168
2. A marshy hollow, especially an area of peat lying lower than surrounding moorland, formed by erosion of a gully or cutting and often having steep edges.
   And they likewise ordained […] that all the warp should be thrown into the Common wayes, to fill up haggs and lakes, where need was, upon a great penalty, where it should ly neer the Common rode. 1662, Sir William Dugdale, The History of Imbanking and Drayning of Divers Fenns and Marshes, page 292
   The shallow slow-running groughs fed the hag with a trickle of coppery water. 2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 101

Etymology 3

From Proto-Germanic *hag(g)ōnan (compare obsolete Dutch hagen (“to torment, agonize”), Norwegian haga (“to tire, weaken”)).

verb

1. (transitive) To harass; to weary with vexation.
   How are Superstitious Men Hagg'd Out of their Wits and Senses, with the Fancy of Omens, Forebodings, Old Wives Tales, and Visions 1692, Roger L'Estrange (tr.), Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists: with Morals and Reflexions, page 149