dreg

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

• IPA^(key): /dɹɛɡ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛɡ

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, 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.

References

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.048

Anagrams

• GERD, derg, regd

Verb

dreg

1. present of dra

Verb

dreg

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