tug
UK/ˈtʌɡ/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ˈtɐɡ/
tug verb: to pull or drag with great effort.
Verb
tug (third-person singular simple present tugs, present participle tugging, simple past and past participle tugged)
- To pull or drag with great effort.
- The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub.
- To pull hard repeatedly.
- He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter.
- To tow by tugboat.
- To masturbate.
Noun (1)
tug (plural tugs)
- A sudden powerful pull.
- At the tug he falls, / Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls.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
- 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...1996 September, Doreen Drury, “The Gay Capital of the World”, in Gay Community News, page 22
- A tugboat.
- 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.1950 July, J. C. Mertens, “By the "Taurus Express" to Baghdad”, in Railway Magazine, page 435
- A type of tractor used for moving trailers.
- Trailers are delivered by road to Poole, Portsmouth, or Rosslare in Ireland. They are then loaded onto ferries by dockyard tractors called "tugs". After crossing the Channel, the driverless loads are disembarked by tug and taken to the specially constructed freight terminal in Cherbourg port. Each...2025 August 20, Paul Clifton, “Ro Ro Rail takes the freight train to Spain”, in RAIL, number 1042, page 49
- A kind of vehicle used for conveying timber and heavy articles.
- Cattiwi came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug1910, Rudyard Kipling, Simple Simon
- A trace, or drawing strap, of a harness.
- A dog toy consisting of a rope, often with a knot in it.
- An iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed.
- An act of male masturbation.
- He had a quick tug to calm himself down before his date.
Noun (2)
tug (plural tugs)
- A foundationer or colleger at Eton.
tug meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
tug in Tamil
- இழு, இழுத்துச் செல், சிறு நீராவிப் படகு
tug in Marathi
- to pull with great effort
- जोराने खेचणे jorāne khecṇe
- sudden pull
- खेच khec
tug in Urdu
- دم, جھٹکا, دم لگانا, گھسیٹنا, کوشش کرنا
tug in Bengali
- টানা, ঠেলা, টাগবোট
More languagesFewer languages
- tug in Telugu
- టగ్
- tug in Malayalam
- വലിക്കുക, പിടിക്കുക, പിടിച്ചുവലിക്കുക, പറിക്കുക
- tug in Kannada
- ಎಳೆ, ಜಗ್ಗು
- tug in Punjabi
- ਟੱਗ, ਟੱਗ ਕਰੋ
- tug in Gujarati
- ટગ
- tug in Odia
- ଖେଞ୍ଚିବା kheñcibā
- tug in Nepali
- टग
Examples of tug in a sentence
- But Van Persie slotted home 40 seconds after the break before David Wheater saw red for a tug on Theo Walcott.2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport:
- They are then loaded onto ferries by dockyard tractors called "tugs".2025 August 20, Paul Clifton, “Ro Ro Rail takes the freight train to Spain”, in RAIL, number 1042, page 49:
Forms of tug
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | tugs |
| present participle | tugging |
| past participle | tugged |
| past | tugged |
| Noun | |
| plural | tugs |
Origin of tug
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.
Related to toga.
Words formed from tug
- tuggery
- heart-tugging
- tug down
- tuggable
- tugger
- tuggie
- tuggingly
- tuggy
- tug off
- tug one's forelock
- tug up
- untugged
- countertug
- rub and tug
- toggle
- tugboat
- tugless
- tuglike
- tugman
- tug of love
- tug of war
Phrases with tug
Words that rhyme with tug
23 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about tug
- What does tug mean?
- Tug means to pull or drag with great effort.
- What is tug in Tamil?
- Tug in Tamil is இழு, இழுத்துச் செல், சிறு நீராவிப் படகு. See Tug meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use tug in a sentence?
- But Van Persie slotted home 40 seconds after the break before David Wheater saw red for a tug on Theo Walcott.
- What part of speech is tug?
- Tug can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce tug?
- Tug is pronounced /ˈtʌɡ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of tug?
- The past tense of tug is tugged.
Words near tug in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tug (page history and authors); tug (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tug (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tug (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tug (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tug (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); tug (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tug (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tug (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ଖେଞ୍ଚିବା (Odia) (page history and authors); tug (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tug.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tug.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tug. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.