fag

The word 'fag' has a complex and pejorative history in English. Its earliest recorded use in the 16th century referred to a flap or loose end, which evolved into 'fag-end' for the useless remnant of a piece of cloth or a cigarette. By the late 18th century, British public school slang adopted 'fag' for a junior student who performed drudgery, metaphorically the "tail-end" or servant of the school hierarchy. The 20th century saw the emergence of its most offensive senses: in British English as a slang term for a cigarette (another "end" to be consumed) and, separately and most derogatorily, in American English as a slur for a homosexual man, likely originating from the earlier sense of a fag as a contemptible or worn-out person.

This word is a simplex form. It is a shortening of the earlier term 'fag-end', meaning the last and worst part of something, such as the stump of a cigarette. The term 'fag-end' itself likely derives from 'fag', an obsolete word meaning a flap or loose end, possibly related to the verb 'to flag' in the sense of becoming limp.