verb
1 to tell off 20-.
2 to fight; hit 20-.
3 to murder 20-.
3 to break: I’ll pagger yer test. [I’ll break your head.] 20.
noun a beating 20-.
‣ paggering a beating 20-. Compare poga etymology: Partridge suggests not Romany or dialect; but possibly a development from Romany poggra ‘to break’; pagard ‘breathless’; verb sense 3 attested by Galloway Tinkler-Gypsies and collected by Simson (1865); attested by JS and BW note:
In Edinburgh and other areas of Scotland, notably the Borders, pagger means a fight, specifically, in Edinburgh, a gang fight, a brawl. To pagger someone is to beat them up. The following example is from Scotland on Sunday May 13, 2012, Hibs v Hearts Souvenir Preview Special Edition, Aidan Smith: One thing I do remember is some Hearts hooligans sneaking out and re-appearing minutes later in the Cowshed for what was a medium-grade pagger.
Grellmann (1787) collected a form Pàkjum ‘To break’ from Continental gipsies. Smart & Crofton (1875) collected the form Póger ‘to break’ from English Gypsies. Canadian Paul Pope (2013) cites pagger which he defines as ‘to beat, break