[elc]

I still remember the first time I visited England and someone asked me if I could spare a fag. I still don't get that one.

[absolootezer0]

fag= cigarette

[null and void]

Fag is short for faggot, which means to bind together as in tobacco bound together in the paper. It's also a weaving technique where a group of threads are tied together to make an open diamond pattern in a cloth.

It came to mean homosexual because, in the interests of economy (and putting on a better show) sometimes when witches were burned at the stake the faggots, or bundles of sticks, that were at the base of the stake contained a sodomite or two.

This was a worse fate that the witch herself received, as the smoke and fumes that rendered the witch unconscious or dead early on were all above them. They got to experience the full spiritual benefit of being burned alive.

[mware]

A fag could be a cigarette or from what I remember from Tom Browns Schooldays,,,one of the lower boys who does errands for 6th form students in public school.