English

Noun

rag week ‎(plural rag weeks)

1. (Britain) An annual event in many (mainly British) universities where students engage in unusual activities to raise money for charity.
   • 1982 January 6, B.A. Young, The Financial Timessection=section 1, page 9:

     The only acting that looks like anything but rag week at a bad university is by Billy Hartman as a private detective.

   • 1987, Terry Pratchett, Mort, page 222:

     Worse than that, too, during Rag Week when the drink flowed quickly and the privy seemes too far to stagger.

   • 2002 December 19, John Thaxter, “Tower of Bagel”, in The Stage, page 15:

     In truth the gags seldom rise above the level of an undergraduate Rag Week but speed, quickchange wigs and sheer chutzpah from Russell Bentley, pretty blonde Marianne Levy, Joel Brookes and Teddy Lawrence give wicked twists to such as 'Richard and Judaism', a Who Wants to be a Millionaire? contestant whose phone-a-friend is his argumentative Jewish mother, a wondering 'Wandering Jew' and a savage Shylock rehearsal scene.

2. (vulgar, British slang, from the former use by women of rags to protect their clothing from menstrual blood) The days of the month when a woman has her period.

   I wouldn't bother trying to get off with her – it's rag week.‎