Whimsical: “Lost the rag”. Origins and just what is “the rag” anyway?

Question

Just a whimsical question...

When one says that they have "lost the rag" - it usually means they've gotten impatient or lost their temper. But what does the 'rag' refer to and how did the phrase originate?

Answer 1

The Free Dictionary has some info on this:

lose one's rag: to lose one's temper suddenly.

[probably back formation from RAGGED, from Old English raggig ; related to Old Norse rögg tuft]

Answer 2

Apparently the 'rag' in question here is your tongue, or control over it: http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/gswithenbank/sayingsc.htm#Chew%20the%20rag

Answer 3

I don't know what the origin of the term is at all- almost certainly belonging to a trade where one would use a rag a lot and reflecting the intense annoyance of having lost something you just had a moment ago.

There is a term, "rag haulers" for sailing boats. Given how many terms are of nautical origin there may be a sailing connection here, but like most widely used but rarely recorded terms it would be very easy to extrapolate it's story in a hundred different ways. Rag is also cockney rhyming slang for "fag" ( as in cigarette ) but I would be very surprised if the phrase didn't predate the cigarette by a long time.

Unrelated but I'm struck by the similarity between "rag" and "rage".

Answer 4

The Oxford English Dictionary says to lose one's rag is a colloquial British phrase with a first quotation from Harry Lauder's Roamin' in the Gloamin' (1928):

Finally, losing his rag completely, he extended his fingers to his nose and challenged any three men in the audience to come up on the platform and fight him!

This is sense P4.b., and the related P4.a. phrase are the earlier to get (someone's) rag out (to make (someone) angry) and to get one's rag out (to become angry). These are originally from Yorkshire, first quotation 1862, with unknown origin but suggest a comparison with red rag (1720, a piece of red cloth to provoke an animal, as in like a red rag to a bull) and the verb rag (1739, to scold).