tug

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See also: Tuğ

English

Etymology

From Middle English tuggen, toggen, from Old English togian (“to draw, drag”), from Proto-West Germanic *togōn, from Proto-Germanic *tugōną (“to draw, tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull”).

Cognate with Middle Low German togen (“to draw”), Middle High German zogen (“to pull, tear off”), Icelandic toga (“to pull, draw”). Related to tow.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: tŭg, IPA(key): /tʌɡ/
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ʌɡ

Verb

tug (third-person singular simple present tugs, present participle tugging, simple past and past participle tugged)

  1. (transitive) To pull or drag with great effort.
    The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub.
  2. (transitive) To pull hard repeatedly.
    He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter.
  3. (transitive) To tow by tugboat.
  4. (slang, transitive, intransitive) To masturbate.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

Two dogs with a tug (sense 5)

tug (plural tugs)

  1. A sudden powerful pull.
    • 1697, Virgil, “The Eleventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:
      At the tug he falls, / Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls.
    • 2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport‎:
      But Van Persie slotted home 40 seconds after the break before David Wheater saw red for a tug on Theo Walcott.
  2. (nautical) A tugboat.
    • 1950 July, J. C. Mertens, “By the "Taurus Express" to Baghdad”, in Railway Magazine, page 435:
      Shipping of every sort, from passenger liners to ferry steamers, tramps to tugs and trailing barges, feluccas to speedboats and yachts, from warships to caiques, chugs, hoots, glides or churns its way in all directions.
  3. (obsolete) A kind of vehicle used for conveying timber and heavy articles.
    • 1910, Rudyard Kipling, Simple Simon:
      Cattiwi came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug
  4. A trace, or drawing strap, of a harness.
  5. A dog toy consisting of a rope, often with a knot in it.
  6. (mining) An iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed.
  7. (slang) An act of male masturbation.
    He had a quick tug to calm himself down before his date.

Derived terms

Translations

tugboat — see tugboat

Anagrams

Elfdalian

Noun

tug n

  1. train

Declension

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Ibanag

Noun

tug

  1. (anatomy) knee

Icelandic

Noun

tug

  1. inflection of tugur:
    1. indefinite accusative singular
    2. indefinite dative singular

Scottish Gaelic

Verb

tug

  1. past of thoir

Usage notes

Tausug

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tuduʀ.

Verb

tūg (used in the form magtūg)

  1. to sleep

White Hmong

Pronunciation

Classifier

tug

  1. Alternative form of tus (“classifier for long objects (such as rods or sticks) and animals or beings”)
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