[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.

[sfimom]

Seriously?

[elc]

Well, I can go home now. I've learned something new today.

[absolootezer0]

you're right on the cig part, not the derogatory. In British English, the word "fag" was used (as a verb and a noun) to refer to a kind of apprenticeship practiced within public schools. Younger boys within the school "fagged" for the older boys by cooking breakfasts, cleaning sports kit (equipment) or other menial tasks. The term fag in this sense derived from the sense "flagging in energy due to having performed strenuous menial labour," as in "I'm all fagged out." Violence, bullying and sexual abuse were sometimes associated with fagging.

[Quilla]

Remind me to never play Jeopardy with you. ;-)