| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
| baggage |
| |
| SYLLABICATION: | bag·gage |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  b g  j |
| NOUN: | 1. The trunks, bags, parcels, and suitcases in which one carries one's belongings while traveling; luggage. 2. The movable equipment and supplies of an army. 3. Superfluous or burdensome practices, regulations, ideas, or traits. 4a. A woman prostitute. b. An impudent girl or woman. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English bagage, from Old French bague, bundle, perhaps of Germanic origin. Sense 4, perhaps from French bagasse, from Provençal bagassa, ultimately from Arabic ba  y, prostitute, from ba , to fornicate. See by in Appendix II.
| | |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
