Other forms: gags, gagged, gagging
To gag is to choke or retch, or to stop somebody speaking. Gag on the smoke, gag the press, a gagging order.
The reflex sense is involuntary and protective, closing the throat against something that should not go down. The silencing sense gives gagging order, the British term for a court order forbidding publication. A gag is also a joke, which is a third and unrelated sense. Note that the origin is probably imitative.
1verbgagTo choke or retch.
“The smell from the bin was so bad that I started to gag.”
2verbstopTo stop somebody speaking.
“The government tried to gag the press by banning reports about the scandal.”
gag is a choking, or a silencing.
Middle English gaggen is probably imitative of choking. The sense of a joke is separate and later.
Old Norse
gaghals
Middle English
gaggen
English, today
gag
Built from
The noun is from Early Modern English gagge; the verb is from Middle English gaggen. Possibly imitative or perhaps related to or influenced by Old Norse gaghals "with head thrown backwards"; > Norwegian dialectal gaga (“bent backwards”). The intransitive sense "to retch" is from 1707. The noun is from the 16th century, figurative use (for "repression of speech") from the 1620s. The secondary meaning "(practical) joke" is from 1863, of unclear origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA