tug
/ˈtʌɡ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.50 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A tugboat.
Example Sentences
- "The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub."
- "He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter."
- "At the tug he falls, / Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls."
- "Even though the authors note that they have not "exhausted the subject of San Francisco's queer history," the hope is that enough of "us" outside the Bay Area will find something of ourselves represented in the book and will feel that tug of connection to and solidarity with the gay capital's community."
- "But Van Persie slotted home 40 seconds after the break before David Wheater saw red for a tug on Theo Walcott."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English tuggen, from Old English togian (“to tow”), from Proto-West Germanic *togōn, from Proto-Germanic *tugōną (“to draw, pull”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull; to lead”). Cognates Cognate with German zögern (“to hesitate, pause”), Faroese and Icelandic toga (“to pull”), French touer (“to tow, tug a ship”); also Welsh dwyn (“to steal; to take; to bring to”), Latin dūcō (“to conduct, guide, lead; to take; to draw, pull; to consider, think; to prolong; to march; to forge”), Ancient Greek δαδύσσομαι (dadússomai, “to be distracted”), Albanian nduk (“to pluck out, pull out, tear”), Central Kurdish دۆشین (doşîn, “to milk”), Northern Kurdish dotin, doşîn, دۆشین (doşîn, “to milk”), Ossetian ду́цын (dúcyn, “to milk”), Pashto لوشل (lwašal, “to milk; to extort”), Persian دوشیدن (dōšīdan / dušidan), دوشتن (duštan), دوختن (dōxtan / duxtan, “to milk”). Related to tow.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtʌɡ/
- British English: /ˈtʌɡ/
Usage
- Transitive verb
- Slang
- Obsolete
- British usage