Etymology From rag (“university students society run for charitable fundraising”) + week, possibly from the verb rag (“tease; torment; banter”).
1
Ireland, UK An annual event in many universities where students engage in unusual activities to raise money for charity.
University slang
This week has been the University College Rag Week. The students are given more or less a free hand all the week. They organize a series of revels culminating in a grand procession and collection this afternoon.1949 April 23, The Texas Outlook, volume 33, number 4, page 4:
The only acting that looks like anything but rag week at a bad university is by Billy Hartman as a private detective.1982 January 6, B.A. Young, The Financial Times, section 1, page 9:
2 more examples
Worse than that, too, during Rag Week when the drink flowed quickly and the privy seemes too far to stagger.1987, Terry Pratchett, Mort, page 222:
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.2002 December 19, John Thaxter, “Tower of Bagel”, in The Stage, page 15: