bug
pronunciation
How to pronounce bug in British English:
UK [bʌɡ]
How to pronounce bug in American English:
US [bʌɡ]
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- Noun:
- general term for any insect or similar creeping or crawling invertebrate
- a fault or defect in a system or machine
- a small hidden microphone; for listening secretly
- insects with sucking mouthparts and forewings thickened and leathery at the base; usually show incomplete metamorphosis
- a minute life form (especially a disease-causing bacterium); the term is not in technical use
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- Verb:
- annoy persistently
- tap a telephone or telegraph wire to get information
Word Origin
- bug
- bug: [14] Originally, bug meant ‘something frightening’ – and in fact one of the earliest known uses of the word was for what we would now call a ‘scare-crow’. It is one of a set of words (others are bogle and perhaps bugaboo) for alarming or annoying phenomena, usually supernatural, whose interrelationship and ultimate source have never been adequately explained (see BOGEY). Bug ‘insect’ [16] is probably the same word, although it has also been connected with Old English budd ‘beetle’. The meanings ‘defect’ (from the 19th century) and ‘germ’ and ‘hidden microphone’ (both 20th-century) all developed from ‘insect’.
- bug (v.2)
- "to annoy, irritate," 1949, probably from bug (n.) and a reference to insect pests. Sense of "equip with a concealed microphone" is from 1919. Related: Bugged; bugging.
- bug (n.)
- "insect," 1620s (earliest reference is to bedbugs), of unknown origin, probably but not certainly from or influenced by Middle English bugge "something frightening, scarecrow" (late 14c.), a meaning obsolete since the "insect" sense arose except in bugbear (1570s) and bugaboo (q.v.). Probably connected with Scottish bogill "goblin, bugbear," or obsolete Welsh bwg "ghost, goblin" (compare Welsh bwgwl "threat," earlier "fear," Middle Irish bocanách "supernatural being"). Some speculate that these words are from a root meaning "goat" (see buck (n.1)) and represent originally a goat-like spectre. Compare also bogey (n.1) and German bögge, böggel-mann "goblin." Perhaps influenced in meaning by Old English -budda used in compounds for "beetle" (compare Low German budde "louse, grub," Middle Low German buddech "thick, swollen"). In the United States bug is not confined, as in England, to the domestic pest, but is applied to all insects of the Coleoptera order, which includes what in this country are generally called beetles. [Farmer & Henley, "Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English," 1912 abridged edition] Meaning "defect in a machine" (1889) may have been coined c. 1878 by Thomas Edison (perhaps with the notion of an insect getting into the works). Meaning "person obsessed by an idea" (such as firebug) is from 1841, perhaps from notion of persistence. Sense of "microbe, germ" is from 1919. Bugs "crazy" is from c. 1900. Bug juice as a slang name for drink is from 1869, originally "bad whiskey." The 1811 slang dictionary has bug-hunter "an upholsterer." Bug-word "word or words meant to irritate and vex" is from 1560s.
- bug (v.1)
- "to bulge, protrude," 1872, originally of eyes, perhaps from a humorous or dialect mispronunciation of bulge (v.). Related: Bugged; bugging. As an adjective, bug-eyed recorded from 1872; so commonly used of space creatures in mid-20c. science fiction that the initialism (acronym) BEM for bug-eyed monster was current by 1953.
- bug (v.3)
- "to scram, skedaddle," 1953, of uncertain origin, perhaps related to bug (v.2), and compare bug off.
Example
- 1. Mr jobs caught the computing bug while growing up in silicon valley .
- 2. She wasted 5 hours one day from a stupid bug , hard lesson learned .
- 3. That 's because many bug repellents contain dangerous chemicals that can make you sick if you eat them by mistake .
- 4. Farmers are using more pesticides to control stink bug growth .
- 5. The biggest breakthroughs so far have been in weed and bug control .