Slug

How to spell slug

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce slug

What does slug mean?

1. nounA slow-moving land mollusc without a shell, often a pest in gardens.
2. verbTo strike someone or something hard with the fist.
3. nounA large mouthful or gulp of a drink.
4. nounA bullet or a small lump of metal, especially one fired from a shotgun.

Slug in a sentence

• noun

  A fat slug left a silver trail across the patio overnight.

• verb

  The boxer reared back to slug his opponent in the jaw.

• noun

  He took a long slug of cold water after the run.

• noun

  The forensic team recovered a flattened slug from the wall.

• noun

  She found a slug chewing holes in the lettuce leaves.

• verb

  Do not slug the vending machine when it eats your coins.

Where does slug come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Slug arrived in late Middle English, around the 1400s, where it first described a slow, lazy person, a sluggard. It is thought to come from a Scandinavian source, related to dialectal Norwegian and Swedish words such as 'slugg', describing something heavy, slow, or sluggish, and the same root gives us 'sluggish' and 'sluggard'. Only later, in the 1700s, was the name transferred to the slow-moving, shell-less garden mollusc that we picture today. The slang senses grew from the idea of a thick, heavy lump: a 'slug' of metal became a small bar or a bullet, a 'slug' of drink became a heavy gulp, and to 'slug' someone became to deliver a heavy blow. The spelling is mercifully simple and phonetic, with no silent letters, so the only real trap is remembering the single 'g' rather than doubling it.

How the word is built

• slug (from a Scandinavian root meaning a slow, sluggish creature); the various noun and verb senses all branch from this single base word