pugging

Verb (1)

pug (third-person singular simple present pugs, present participle pugging, simple past and past participle pugged)

1. (British, India, obsolete, rare, transitive) To track (an animal) by following pawprints; also (by extension) to track (a person) by following footprints.
   • Wishing to track a good boar that had got away through some thick cover, we called up the headman of the beat (a man lent to us by a friend) and asked him if he could pug. He was a havildar (sergeant) of police. He replied, 'That is my regular business, sahib; of course I can pug. My work is...1889, R[obert] S[tephenson] S[myth] Baden-Powell, “Rearing Pig”, in Pigsticking or Hoghunting. […], London: Harrison & Sons, […], →OCLC, § 27, page 57

Verb (2)

pug (third-person singular simple present pugs, present participle pugging, simple past and past participle pugged)

1. (rare, transitive) To hit or punch (someone or something); also, to poke (someone or something).
   • Agosh! I long to try a bout / With zom o' Burdett's rabble rout; / I'd quickly pug their guts: / I'd gee mun zich a lammin [i.e., violent] lick, / I'd make mun of elections zick; / I'd gee mun all the butts.1812, Peter Pindar [pseudonym; John Wolcot], “The Middlesex Election; or, Poetical Epistles, in the Devonshire Dialect, by Mr. Joseph Budge, in London, to Lord Rolle, at Weymouth”, in The Works of...
2. (transitive) To fill or stop up (a space) with pug (noun etymology 5, noun sense 1), clay, sawdust, or other material by tamping; (specifically) to fill in (the space between joists of a floor, a partition, etc.) with some material to deaden sound, make fireproof, etc.
   • Forbid it Venus! From the venal Fair / Snatch every charm, to Hay convert her Locks; / Pug up her nose, and pug-like make her stare; / And pit her pimpled visage with small-pox.1812, Peter Pindar [pseudonym; John Wolcot], “Lord Auckland’s Triumph; or, The Death of Crim. Con. A Pair of Prophetic Odes. Elegy to a Friend.”, in The Works of Peter Pindar, Esq. […], new edition...
3. (transitive, pottery) To mix and work (wet clay) until flexible, soft, and free from air pockets and suitable for making bricks, pottery, etc.
   • to pug clay ready for shaping
4. (Australia, New Zealand, archaic, transitive) Of cattle, etc.: to trample (the ground, a place, etc.) until it becomes muddy and soft; to poach.
5. (England, also, archaic, figuratively, regional, transitive) To pack or tamp (something) into a small space.

See all 31 meanings of pug