1. A small piece of cloth
   "She used the rag end of the fabric to make a pocket square";
   - shred, tag, tag end, tatter
    
2. [informal] Newspaper with half-size pages
   "The rag was full of celebrity gossip";
   - tabloid, sheet
    
3. Music with a syncopated melody (usually for the piano)
   "Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' is a classic rag piece";
   - ragtime
    
4. [Brit] A boisterous practical joke (especially by college students)
   "The fraternity's annual rag involved covering the dean's car in sticky notes"
    
5. [Brit] A week at British universities during which side-shows and processions of floats are organized to raise money for charities
   "Students looked forward to the fun and fundraising of rag week";
   - rag week [Brit]

1. Harass persistently in cruel or annoying way
   "The children ragged the stuttering teacher";
   - torment, bedevil, crucify, dun, frustrate
    
2. Cause annoyance, especially by persistent minor irritations
   "His constant interruptions rag the entire team";
   - annoy, get to, bother, get at [informal], irritate, rile, nark [Brit, slang], nettle, gravel [US], vex, chafe [archaic], devil, tick off [informal], roil [N. Amer]
    
3. Deliberately provoke by mocking or poking fun
   "The children ragged the new teacher";
   - tease, razz [N. Amer, informal], cod [Brit, informal], bait, taunt, twit [informal], rally, ride [N. Amer, informal], wind up [Brit, informal]
    
4. [informal] Censure severely or angrily
   "The deputy ragged the Prime Minister";
   - call on the carpet [US, informal], take to task, rebuke, trounce, lecture, reprimand, jaw [informal], dress down [informal], call down [informal], scold, chide, berate, bawl out [informal], chew out [N. Amer, informal], chew up [N. Amer, informal], have words, lambaste, lambast, ream [N. Amer, informal], wig [Brit, informal], carpet [Brit, informal]
    
5. (music) play in ragtime
   "rag that old tune"
    
6. (mining) break into lumps before sorting
   "rag ore"

1. (AI) a technique that enhances language models by first retrieving relevant information from external databases, then incorporating this information into the context for text generation, thus improving accuracy and relevance of responses
   "RAG allows AI models to access current data for up-to-date answers"; "RAG reduces hallucinations in AI outputs by grounding responses in retrieved facts";
   - retrieval augmented generation

Derived forms: rags, ragging, ragged

Type of: bemock [archaic], beset, break up, chevvy [non-standard], chevy [Brit, archaic], chivvy [Brit], chivy [Brit], criticise [Brit], criticize, damn [informal], dance music, displease, fragment, fragmentise [Brit], fragmentize, harass, harry, hassle [informal], hebdomad [rare], knock [informal], mock, molest, newspaper, paper, pick apart, piece of cloth, piece of material, plague, play, practical joke, provoke, spiel, week

Encyclopedia: Rag, Tag and Bobtail