<p><strong>Verb</strong></p><ul><li>(used without object)<ul><li>to fail to maintain a desired pace or to keep up; fall or stay behind: After five minutes of hard running, some of them began to lag.</li><li>to move or develop slowly, as toward a goal or objective, or in relation to an associated factor (often followed by behind): to lag behind in production.</li><li>to delay or fail in reaching full development: The factory lags regularly in making its quota.</li><li>to hang back; linger; delay: The old friends lagged because they wanted to talk some more.</li><li>to decrease, wane, or flag gradually, as in intensity: Interest lagged as the meeting went on.</li><li>(in video games) to experience a delay between player input or game signals and the in-game manifestation of that action, often due to high network latency: I’m lagging so hard that enemies are killing me before I can even attack them.</li></ul></li><li>(used with object)<ul><li>to fail to keep up with: The industry still lags the national economy.</li><li>to cause to lag.</li></ul></li></ul><p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>a lagging or falling behind; retardation.</li><li>a person who lags behind, is the last to arrive, etc.</li><li>an interval or lapse of time: There was a developmental lag in the diffusion of ideas.</li><li>Digital Technology: the delay between a signal input and its display on a screen, as a high-definition television screen or LCD, due to latency in digital data conversion.</li><li>(in video games) a display lag between player input or game signals and the in-game manifestation of that action, due to differences in display refresh rate or controller input.</li><li>Network lag: such a display lag due to high network latency.</li><li>Mechanics: the amount of retardation of some motion.</li><li>Electricity: the retardation of one alternating quantity, as current, with respect to another related alternating quantity, as voltage, often expressed in degrees.</li><li>the act of lagging.</li></ul>