the.com/wag
The leash-free apology dogs give before you even know you're mad.
means A habitual joker — someone who gets a kick out of teasing and clowning around, usually in a harmless, likeable way.
from Goes back to Middle English 'waggen,' meaning to shake or sway — the same root that gave us the verb 'wag' as in wagging a tail or a finger. By the 1500s, 'wag' had jumped from describing the motion to describing a person: originally a mischievous or roguish fellow, someone always stirring things up, and the sense softened over time into today's 'class clown' meaning. So the prankster and the tail-wagger share a root — both are creatures of restless, amusing motion.
- origin
- wolves wag too, but mostly at humans, not each other
- direction matters
- right-biased wag means happy, left means anxious
- not just joy
- dogs wag during fear and aggression too
- whole body version
- intense wags can start at the shoulders