Word.ws English Dictionary

tugging

/ˈtʌɡɪŋ/

tugging is the present participle and gerund of tug.

Meaning of tug

Verb

tug (third-person singular simple present tugs, present participle tugging, simple past and past participle tugged)

  1. (transitive) To pull or drag with great effort.
    • The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub.
  2. (transitive) To pull hard repeatedly.
    • He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter.
  3. (transitive) To tow by tugboat.
  4. (ambitransitive, slang) To masturbate.

See all 13 meanings of tug

Noun

tugging (plural tuggings)

  1. The action of something that tugs; a pull.
    • Yet there began to be insistent tuggings as if from a dream that could not be recalled.1951, Raymond F. Jones, Renaissance

Forms of tugging

pluraltuggings

Phrases with tugging

Words that rhyme with tugging

Questions about tugging

What does tugging mean?
Tugging means the action of something that tugs; a pull.
What is tugging the present participle and gerund of?
Tugging is the present participle and gerund of tug.
What part of speech is tugging?
Tugging is a noun.
How do you pronounce tugging?
Tugging is pronounced /ˈtʌɡɪŋ/.
What is the plural of tugging?
The plural of tugging is tuggings.

Words near tugging in the dictionary

  1. Tuggerawong
  2. tuggers
  3. tuggery
  4. tuggie
  5. tuggies
  6. tugging
  7. tugging at someone's heart strings
  8. tugging at someone's heartstrings
  9. tugging one's forelock
  10. tuggingly
  11. tuggings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tugging (page history and authors); tug (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.

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