Word.ws English Dictionary

tugboat

/ˈtʌɡbəʊt/US/ˈtʌɡboʊt/

tugboat noun: a small, powerful boat used to push or pull barges or to help maneuver larger vessels.

tugboat: a small, powerful boat used to push or pull barges or to help maneuver larger vessels
Image: Yannick Le Bris, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

tugboat (plural tugboats)

  1. A small, powerful boat used to push or pull barges or to help maneuver larger vessels.
    Synonyms:
    tug
  2. (Internet, euphemistic, rare) A Social Security Disability Insurance payment; monthly tugboat

tugboat meaning in Kannada, Arabic, Indonesian and Thai

tugboat in Kannada

ಎಳೆಯೋಡ, ಜಗ್ಗು ಹಡಗು, ಕರ್ಷಕ ನೌಕೆ, ಎಳೆದಾಡುವ ದೋಣಿ

tugboat in Arabic

small, powerful boat
زَوْرَق اَلْقَطْر zawraq al-qaṭr

tugboat in Indonesian

small, powerful boat
kapal tunda

tugboat in Thai

small, powerful boat
เรือโยง reua yohng

Synonyms of tugboat

Forms of tugboat

pluraltugboats
alternative formtug-boat
alternative formtug boat

Plural of tugboat: tugboats

Origin of tugboat

From tug + boat. Sense 2 from monthly tugboat, a reference to the saying "our ship has come in," here referring to a small, "reliable" "tugboat" instead of a large windfall.

Words formed from tugboat

Questions about tugboat

What does tugboat mean?
Tugboat means a small, powerful boat used to push or pull barges or to help maneuver larger vessels.
What is tugboat in Kannada?
Tugboat in Kannada is ಎಳೆಯೋಡ, ಜಗ್ಗು ಹಡಗು, ಕರ್ಷಕ ನೌಕೆ. See Tugboat meaning in Kannada.
What part of speech is tugboat?
Tugboat is a noun.
How do you pronounce tugboat?
Tugboat is pronounced /ˈtʌɡbəʊt/ (UK).
What is the plural of tugboat?
The plural of tugboat is tugboats.

Words near tugboat in the dictionary

  1. tug-of-war
  2. tug-of-wars
  3. tugarinovite
  4. Tugas
  5. Tugaya
  6. tugboat
  7. tugboater
  8. tugboaters
  9. tugboatman
  10. tugboatmen
  11. tugboats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tugboat (page history and authors); tugboat (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tugboat.wav.

Cite this entry: “tugboat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tugboat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.