Bag

Bag

A bag (also known regionally as a sack) is a simple tool in the form of a non-rigid container. The use of bags predates recorded history, with the earliest bags being no more than lengths of animal skin or woven plant fibers, folded up at the edges and secured in that shape with strings of the same material. Despite their simplicity, bags have been fundamental for the development of human civilization, as they allow people to easily collect loose materials such as berries or food grains, and to transport more items than could readily by carried in the hands. The word probably has its origins in the Norse word baggi, from the reconstructed Proto-European bʰak, but is also comparable to the Welsh baich (load, bundle), and the Greek βάσταγμα (bástagma, load).

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Famous quotes containing the word bag:

    I am not naturally ... “A bag of wind”; yet ... I mean deliberately and decidedly “to cut” in future all my old ideas on this head. I don’t think modesty “pays.” It is a good quality in a family, it is a domestic virtue, it makes a home happy after you have got a home, but it is not potent in getting homes. It is not a money-maker, neither is it lucky in gaining a reputation. I am of the impression that gaseous bodies do better.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    What is this beast, she thought,
    with muscles on his arms
    like a bag of snakes?
    What is this moss on his legs?
    What prickly plant grows on his cheeks?
    What is this voice as deep as a dog?
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    Have you seen but a bright lily grow
    Before rude hands have touch’d it?
    Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
    Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
    Have you felt the wool of the beaver,
    Or swan’s down ever?
    Or have smelt of the bud of the brier,
    Or the nard in the fire?
    Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
    O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!
    Ben Jonson (1572–1637)