scrag

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
scrag/skraɡ/

▶verb (scrags, scragging, scragged) informal

• 1 chiefly Brit. handle roughly; beat up.

• 2 archaic or N. Amer. kill; murder.

▶noun

• 1 an unattractively thin person or animal.

• 2 archaic the neck.

– origin C16: perh. an alt. of Scots and northern English crag ‘neck’; the verb is from the early use ‘hang, strangle’.