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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/BoosherCacow on 2023-10-06 18:25:00.

I did search for this and only came up with one answer from 8 years ago that seems less than conclusive.

I am reading Shelby Foote’s civil war narrative which was written (I think) in the '50’s and he uses the term “fagged out” a few times as a pretty apt way of describing worn out from physical activity (I have to clean out my woods twice a year and carrying downed sticks is a killer). That got me to thinking about the changes in language over time and I wondered if there was a concrete cause for the word being co-opted to such awful use.

I know this is a touchy subject so I ask this respectfully and will state openly that I despise the word. There’s a whole lot of things in history I despise but want to understand the genesis of. This is really the only place I can think of where I can ask this with the absolute control the mods keep this sub under.

So where did it come from?