scrag-end

English

Noun

scrag-end (plural scrag-ends)

1. Alternative form of scrag end
   1. Cheap cut of mutton or lamb.
      • 2011, Eliza Acton, The Elegant Economist:

        When the entire joint, with the exception of the scrag-end (which should always be taken off), is cooked, proportionate time must be allowed for it.

      • 2011, Susan Sallis, Rosemary For Remembrance:

        At other times she would add some precious scrag-end of mutton, and the house would be permeated with a wonderful aroma, delicate and substantial at the same time.

      • 2012, Kathleen Tynan, Tynan Letters:

        Today: chilled macaroni, semolina encasing scrag-end of lamb – couscous – and damp Swiss roll.

      • 2019, Alan Brookes, The Bellesauvage Redemption:

        He's saved a special bit of scrag-end for you.

   2. Leftovers
      • 1882, George Mac Donald, Castle Warlock, page 19:

        He would not wilfully leave the scrag-ends of a property and a history without a man to take them up, and possibly bear them on to redemption ; who could tell what life might be in the stock yet ?

      • 1882, Cardiff Naturalists' Society, Reports and Transactions - Volume 13, page 31:

        What are Amoy, Fuchoo, and Ningpo, or Tianshan-peelo and Tian-shan-man-loo to English children but plaguy words conveying no information whatever—mere scrag-ends of a musty gazetteer crammed into their heads !

      • 1950, Harold Hobson, Theatre - Volume 2, page 21:

        At first, with its demonstration of the hatreds and dissensions that set the scrag-ends of the victors at each others' throats, and the bewilderment that these induce in the British officer whose job it is to smooth them into some sort of unity, it instructs rather than moves.

      • 1982, Chaim Bermant, Belshazzar: A Cat's Story for Humans, page 7:

        The kids, and even Zombie, like to leave out little titbits on their plates for me, a bit of fish here, a bit of chicken there, but if she catches them at it there's hell to pay 'They're only scrag-ends, Mummy,' they protest. '

   3. Less desirable part
      • 1917, Arthur Machen, The Terror: A Fantasy, page 99:

        “Indeed, sir,” he added, “it is part of my orders not to set foot on the other side of that gate myself, not for one scrag-end of a minute

      • 1967, John Boynton Priestley, Donald Gunn MacRae, The World of J. B. Priestley, page 112:

        On our way back from Hebburn to Gateshead, which was a journey among the very scrag-ends of industrial life, we passed no less than three funerals, each of them with a long black tail to it.

      • 2011, Sara Stockbridge, The Fortunes of Grace Hammer: A Tale of the Victorian Underworld, page 156:

        As if there wasn't enough sensation already for people disposed to such things, if not on their very doorsteps then surely a short ride away from their perfumed gardens to the scrag-end of their fair city.

      • 2019, Kate Atkinson, Big Sky, →ISBN, page 267:

        Better to go over a cliff than to live out the scrag-end of your life in a place like this.

   4. Old useless person
      • 1853, Charles Harpur, The Bushrangers:

        Welcome, ye pitiful scrag-ends of the law!

      • 2014, Will Self, Shark:

        Quint – which is what she calls the old scrag-end sitting in the vinyl-covered institutional armchair by the open window – does nothing.

      • 2014, Julius Falconer, Death by Aloe-Seed: A Country Parson’s Singular Tale, page 14:

        Mistress Paver received me and invited me in: a scrag-end of a woman, cheerless, sullen.