tug

present singular third person tugs · participle present tugging · participle past tugged · past tugged

1. transitiveTo pull or drag with great effort.

   The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub.

2. transitiveTo pull hard repeatedly.

   He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter.

3. transitiveTo tow by tugboat.
4. ambitransitiveslangTo masturbate.

plural tugs

1. 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

   2 more examples

   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 community.

   1996 September, Doreen Drury, “The Gay Capital of the World”, in Gay Community News, page 22

   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

2. nauticalA 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

3. A type of tractor used for moving trailers.

   1 more example

   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 rail wagon holds two lorry trailers and features a new 'pivoting pocket' which moves through 45° to allow the tug to push the trailer onto the wagon from alongside.

   2025 August 20, Paul Clifton, “Ro Ro Rail takes the freight train to Spain”, in RAIL, number 1042, page 49

4. obsoleteA kind of vehicle used for conveying timber and heavy articles.

   Cattiwi came down the steep lane with his five-horse timber-tug

   1910, Rudyard Kipling, Simple Simon

5. A trace, or drawing strap, of a harness.
6. A dog toy consisting of a rope, often with a knot in it.
7. businessAn iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed.
8. slangAn act of male masturbation.

   He had a quick tug to calm himself down before his date.

plural tugs

1. UKslangA foundationer or colleger at Eton.