Scrag \Scrag\, v. t. [Cf. {Scrag}.] To seize, pull, or twist the neck of; specif., to hang by the neck; to kill by hanging. [Colloq.]
An enthusiastic mob will scrag me to a certainty the day war breaks out. --Pall Mall Mag. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Scrag \Scrag\ (skr[a^]g), n. [Cf. dial. Sw. skraka a great dry tree, a long, lean man, Gael. sgreagach dry, shriveled, rocky. See {Shrink}, and cf. {Scrog}, {Shrag}, n.] 1. Something thin, lean, or rough; a bony piece; especially, a bony neckpiece of meat; hence, humorously or in contempt, the neck.
Lady MacScrew, who . . . serves up a scrag of mutton on silver. --Thackeray.
2. A rawboned person. [Low] --Halliwell.
3. A ragged, stunted tree or branch.
{Scrag whale} (Zo["o]l.), a North Atlantic whalebone whale ({Agaphelus gibbosus}). By some it is considered the young of the right whale.
Even writers prone to the idyllic were honest about this. In the French countryside around 1850 only three-fifths of the population ever got to drink wine, and meat - scrag end of rabbit, most likely - was a rare family indulgence.