Tug

How to spell tug

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tug

What does tug mean?

1. verbTo pull at something hard, often with a short, sharp movement.
2. nounA short, forceful pulling action.
3. nounA small, powerful boat used to tow or guide larger vessels.

Tug in a sentence

• verb

  The toddler began to tug at her mother's sleeve.

• noun

  She felt a sharp tug on the fishing line.

• noun

  A sturdy tug guided the tanker into the harbour.

• verb

  He had to tug the stuck drawer with both hands.

• noun

  One firm tug on the cord started the engine.

• noun

  The crippled ship waited for a tug to bring it ashore.

Where does tug come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tug traces back to a Germanic root meaning 'to pull' or 'to draw'. It appears in Middle English as 'tuggen', a frequentative formed alongside the Old English verb 'togian', which meant to drag or haul something along. The same family of words gave English 'tow', the act of pulling a vehicle or boat behind another, and the two share the underlying idea of dragging by force. The compact, blunt spelling has stayed remarkably stable over the centuries, with the hard final 'g' echoing the abrupt physical jerk the word describes. From the 1800s the noun was applied to the small, powerful boats built to pull larger ships, giving us 'tugboat'.

How the word is built

• tug (single root, from Old English togian: to pull or draw)