Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Scrag

Scrag (skrag) , noun

[Compare dial. Swedish skraka a great dry tree, a long, lean man, Gael. sgreagach dry, shriveled, rocky. See Shrink, and compare Scrog, Shrag, n.]

1.
Something thin, lean, or rough; a bony piece; especially, a bony neckpiece of meat; hence, humorously or in contempt, the neck.
Lady MacScrew, who... serves up a scrag of mutton on silver. — Thackeray
2.
A rawboned person. [Low] — Halliwell
3.
A ragged, stunted tree or branch.
Collocations (1)
Scrag whale (Zoology) , a North Atlantic whalebone whale (Agaphelus gibbosus). By some it is considered the young of the right whale.

Scrag , transitive verb

[Compare Scrag.]

To seize, pull, or twist the neck of; specif., to hang by the neck; to kill by hanging. [Colloquial]
An enthusiastic mob will scrag me to a certainty the day war breaks out. — Pall Mall Mag