Aggie

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A large, often colored marble used as a shooter in games ; a student or graduate of an agricultural or Texas A&M university
2. A big decorative marble, typically made of glass or agate, used in children's games ; a person who attends or has graduated from an agricultural college, especially Texas A&M
3. A large playing marble, sometimes made of agate ; an informal name for a student or alumnus of an agricultural school, particularly in Texas

Etymology: "Aggie" is a clipped, affectionate nickname built from two very different words. The first is "agate," the gemstone, and the second is "agricultural," the adjective, and the same ending, "-ie," turns each into a casual shorthand. Its best-known use is for students of agricultural colleges, and in the United States the nickname attaches to the schools themselves, such as the Texas A&M Aggies. The ending is a diminutive suffix, the sort that turns "Jimmy" or "Charlie" into friendly forms of names, and English applied it to clipped words from the 19th century onward. Starting from "agate" gives a marble, the glassy toy named for the stone. Starting from "agricultural" gives the college sense, which is the one that stuck. Because the suffix is the same in both cases, a reader meeting "aggie" alone has to rely on context to tell whether it means a marble or a farm student.