English Explanatory Dictionary

slug

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Any of many gastropod mollusks, having no (or only a rudimentary) shell.
  2. A slow, lazy person; a sluggard.
  3. A bullet or other projectile fired from a firearm; in modern usage, generally refers to a shotgun slug.
  4. A solid block or piece of roughly shaped metal.
  5. A counterfeit coin, especially one used to steal from vending machines.
  6. A shot of a drink, usually alcoholic.
  7. A title, name or header, a catchline, a short phrase or title to indicate the content of a newspaper or magazine story for editing use.
  8. The imperial (English) unit of mass that accelerates by 1 foot per second squared (1 ft/s²) when a force of one pound-force (lbf) is exerted on it.
  9. A discrete mass of a material that moves as a unit, usually through another material.
  10. A motile pseudoplasmodium formed by amoebae working together.
  11. An accessory to a diesel-electric locomotive, used to increase adhesive weight and allow full power to be applied at a lower speed. It has trucks with traction motors, but lacks a prime mover, being powered by electricity from the mother locomotive, and may or may not have a control cab.
  12. A black screen used to separate broadcast items.
verb
  1. To drink quickly; to gulp; to down.
  2. To take part in casual carpooling; to form ad hoc, informal carpools for commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking.
  3. To become reduced in diameter, or changed in shape, by passing from a larger to a smaller part of the bore of the barrel.
  4. To move slowly or sluggishly; to lie idle.
  5. To load with a slug or slugs.
  6. To make sluggish.
noun
  1. A hard blow, usually with the fist.
verb
  1. To hit very hard, usually with the fist.
noun
  1. A special-purpose security of the State and Local Government Series.

Pronunciation

slŭg /slʌɡ/ En-us-slug.ogg en-au-slug.ogg

Word forms

slug slugs slugging slugged

Etymology

Originally referred to a slow, lazy person, from Middle English slugge (“lazy person", also "sloth, slothfulness”), probably of either Old English or Old Norse origin; perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sliǵ-ōn, from *sley- (“smooth; slick; sticky; slimy”) or otherwise from the root of Old Norse slókr (“lazy person, oaf”), whence Icelandic slókur (“laziness”). Compare Norn slug (“lazy, slothful, sluggish”), dialectal Norwegian slugg (“a large, heavy body”), sluggje (“heavy, slow person”), Danish slog (“rascal, rogue”). Compare also Dutch slak (“snail, slug”). Doublet of slotch. The sense of a hitchhiking commuter is from the sense of a counterfeit bus token. Bus operators considered sluggers to be cheating as if they were using counterfeit tokens.

Synonyms

nip & Thesaurus:drink geepound

Related words

lug sluggard snail

Derived words

banana slug black slug cherry slug ghost slug greenhouse slug hump slug land slug leatherleaf slug leopard slug mantleslug monkey slug pancake slug pear slug red triangle slug rifled slug road slug rose slug sand slug Santa Barbara shelled slug sea slug sell salt to a slug semislug slinch slug bug slugburger slug caterpillar sluggish sluggos sluggy slughorn slugicide slugify slugless sluglike slug line slug moth slug slime slug snail slugthrower slugworm solid slug variable neon slug yard slug yellow slug aslug forslug outslug preslug slugabed slugabug sluggable slug away slugfest slugger slugging match slug it out slug out
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