tug
pronunciation
How to pronounce tug in British English:
UK [tʌɡ]
How to pronounce tug in American English:
US [ tʌɡ]
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- Noun:
- a sudden abrupt pull
- a powerful small boat designed to pull or push larger ships
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- Verb:
- pull hard
- strive and make an effort to reach a goal
- tow (a vessel) with a tug
- carry with difficulty
- move by pulling hard
- pull or strain hard at
- struggle in opposition
Word Origin
- tug
- tug: [13] Tug goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *teukh- ‘pull’ (source also of German ziehen ‘pull’ and English truck [14], whose original meaning was ‘pull up, gather up’). This in turn was descended from Indo-European *deuk- ‘pull’, from which English gets conduct, duke, reduce, etc.=> conduct, duct, duke, educate, reduce, tie, tow
- tug (v.)
- c. 1200, from weak grade of Old English teohan "to pull, drag," from Proto-Germanic *teuhan "to pull" (cognates: Old High German zucchen "to pull, jerk," German zücken "to draw quickly), from PIE root *deuk- "to lead" (see duke (n.)). Related to tow (v.). Related: Tugged; tugging.
- tug (n.)
- mid-14c., in reference to some part of a harness;" c. 1500 as "act of pulling or dragging," from tug (v.). Meaning "small, powerful vessel for towing other vessels" is recorded from 1817. Phrase tug of war (1670s) was originally figurative, "the decisive contest, the real struggle," from the noun in the sense "supreme effort, strenuous contest of forces" (1650s). As an actual athletic event, from 1876.
Example
- 1. Tie a rope or a tug toy to the door of your fridge .
- 2. One sometimes must diet and wiggle , tug and stretch to squeeze into a pair of tight jeans .
- 3. It was so big that a tug boat was unable to pull it back out to sea .
- 4. Two weeks ago it was the spanish banks which were wobbling -- but a quick tug and push worth 100 billion kept the plate moving .
- 5. Waiting for the star ferry I see the winking lights of tug boats as they fuss around a cruise ship .