Primary
''dreg'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260606185347-00-⌔
dreg - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
English
Noun
dreg (countable and uncountable, plural dregs) (chiefly in the plural)
- singular of dregs (“sediment in a liquid”)
- ✤ *to the last dreg *
- ✤ What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?1
- ✤ O! be the cup of joy to thee consign’d,/Of joy unmix’d, without a dreg behind!2
- ✤ 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.3
- ✤ “Ay, thou doubter! Ay thou disbelieving dreg!”4
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: /ˈdɹɛɡ/, [ˈdɹ̝ʷɛɡ]; [ˈd̠ɹ̠˔ʷɛɡ]
- Audio (US): 🔊
- (/ɡ/-tensing)
- (Upper Midwestern US, Northwestern US, Canada) IPA: /ˈdɹeɪ̯ɡ/, [ˈdɹ̝ʷeɪ̯ɡ]; [ˈd̠ɹ̠˔ʷeɪ̯ɡ]
- Rhymes: -ɛɡ
- Hyphenation: dreg
- Homophone: drag (æ-raising)
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
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]: ↩
1768, William Hayley, “On the Fear of Death, An Epistle to a Lady”, in Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects, published 1818: ↩
1915, George Washington Crile, “address delivered at the Massachusetts General Hospital 15 Oct 1910”, in The Origin and Nature of Emotions: ↩
1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 190: ↩
Secondary
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