Brewer's: Gags

in theatrical parlance, are interpolations. When Hamlet directs the players to say no more “than is set down,” he cautions them against indulgence in gags. (Hamlet, iii. 2.) (Dutch, gaggelen, to cackle. Compare Anglo-Saxon, geagl, the jaw.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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