Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Clay ground and kneaded with water into a plastic consistency for forming bricks or pottery.
- noun A machine for grinding and mixing clay.
- transitive verb To work or knead (clay) with water.
- transitive verb To fill in with clay or mortar.
- transitive verb To make soundproof by covering or packing with clay, mortar, sawdust, or felt.
- noun A footprint, track, or trail, especially of an animal; a pugmark.
- noun A dog of a small sturdy breed developed in China, having a short muzzle, wrinkled face, short smooth coat, and tightly curled tail.
- noun A pug nose.
- noun A fighter, especially a boxer.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A pug-nose; the form or turn of a pug-nose: as, a decided pug.
- noun Clay ground and worked or kneaded with water, and sometimes with other substances, into consistency for molding, as into bricks, etc.
- noun A pug-mill.
- noun An elf; fairy; goblin; sprite: same as
puck , 1. - noun A monkey.
- noun A fox.
- noun A dwarf variety of dog; a pug-dog.
- noun A term of familiarity or endearment, like
duck , etc. - noun A three-year-old salmon.
- noun One of certain small geometrid moths: an English collectors' name. The netted pug is Eupithecia venosata; the foxglovepug is E. pulchellata.
- noun A short cloak worn by ladies about the middle of the eighteenth century.
- To thrust; strike. [Prov. Eng.]
- In building: To tamp with clay, or stop with puddle; clay.
- To line (spaces between floor-joists) or cover (partition-walls) with coarse mortar, felt, sawdust, or any other material to impede the passage of sound; deaden; deafen.
- In pottery-and brick-manuf., to grind, as clay, with water in order to render it plastic.
- noun The print of a foot; a footmark. See
puggi . - noun Chaff; refuse of grain.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To mix and stir when wet, as clay for bricks, pottery, etc.
- transitive verb To fill or stop with clay by tamping; to fill in or spread with mortar, as a floor or partition, for the purpose of deadening sound. See
Pugging , 2. - noun India A footprint; a track; as of a boar.
- noun Tempered clay; clay moistened and worked so as to be plastic.
- noun A pug mill.
- noun a kind of mill for grinding and mixing clay, either for brickmaking or the fine arts; a clay mill. It consists essentially of an upright shaft armed with projecting knives, which is caused to revolve in a hollow cylinder, tub, or vat, in which the clay is placed.
- noun obsolete An elf, or a hobgoblin; also same as
puck . - noun colloq. A name for a monkey.
- noun Prov. Eng. A name for a fox.
- noun obsolete An intimate; a crony; a dear one.
- noun obsolete Chaff; the refuse of grain.
- noun obsolete A prostitute.
- noun (Zoöl.) One of a small breed of pet dogs having a short nose and head; a pug dog.
- noun (Zoöl.) Any geometrid moth of the genus Eupithecia.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The footprint of an animal. (Also pugmark) (From the Hindi for 'foot', related to Sanskrit 'padh' and Greek 'ped')
- noun Any compressed clay-like material mixed and worked into a soft, plastic condition for making bricks, pottery or for paving. (Also pug soil)
- noun obsolete, slang A nickname for a pugilist or boxer.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun small compact smooth-coated breed of Asiatic origin having a tightly curled tail and broad flat wrinkled muzzle
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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A transplanted Hollander, carried thither originally from China, seems to thrive particularly well in this part of the world; the little pug dog, or Dutch mastiff, which our English ladies were once so fond of, that poor Garrick thought it worth his while to ridicule them for it in the famous dramatic satire called Lethe, has quitted London for Padua, I perceive; where he is restored happily to his former honours, and every carriage I meet here has a _pug_ in it.
Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I Hester Lynch Piozzi 1781
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Blue says: doggielore: The evolutionary isolationism for a pug is stricter than that of the human races ....
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The evolutionary isolationism for a pug is stricter than that of the human races ....
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Her pug is the idol of her life, and she hates babies, said Rose.
Rose in Bloom 1876
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A few feet away, shelter employee Randi Lee Knox petted a tiny dog that she called a pug mix.
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The evolutionary isolationism for a pug is stricter than that of the human races, but if you were some alien overlord shopping for a pet human, it would find “white” humans, “black” humans, “yellow” humans (an Asian called himself this to me in conversation, so I guess it’s ok).
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Putting up with the pug was a small price to pay for digs like these.
Georgia’s Kitchen Jenny Nelson 2010
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No, there was nothing sublime and dolorous about Miss Manners; her face was round, cheery, and slightly puckered, with two little black eyes sparking and shining under dark brows, a nose she unblushingly called pug, and a big mouth with eminently white and regular teeth, which she said were such a comfort, for they never ached, and never would to the end of time.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 46, August, 1861 Various
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I might as well cry because my pug is a shade lighter than my new winter costume I ordered to match his coat.
A Heart-Song of To-day Annie Gregg Savigny
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They called the pug-nosed creature, _cher maître_!
The Belovéd Vagabond William John Locke 1896
chained_bear commented on the word pug
"However, the name, as applied to the stretch of dirt and pug and gravel that the Goodyears had put through the woods and over the bogland to the little outport where my grandmother had been born, was not altogether inappropriate."
--David Macfarlane, The Danger Tree, 221
May 13, 2008
bilby commented on the word pug
A pug on the wrong side of town.
November 26, 2008
arcadia commented on the word pug
pug-fugly, anyone?
November 26, 2008
arcadia commented on the word pug
Just Say NO to Pugs!
November 26, 2008
madmouth commented on the word pug
may be an abbreviated form of puggaree, a hat band
June 26, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word pug
Nice link bilby!! The poor thing looks like it's eyes are going to fall out.
July 23, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word pug
Well, he's scared. Can you blame him?
I like pugs. Pug, pug, pug. They're cuuude!
July 23, 2009
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word pug
Apparantly they sneeze a lot. I have never owned a dog, let alone a pug, and I can't picture them sneezing. :-)
July 24, 2009
bilby commented on the word pug
"Cattle pee and poop around water supplies, under shade trees, and outside the gates of their enclosures. They do not evenly distribute their waste. Not even remotely. The field is thus not properly fertilized. The main way to mitigate this problem is to pack cattle with greater density, thus improving nutrient distribution. This decision, however, quickly leads to what called pugging---the transformation of soil around watering spots into muck that can be 18 inches thick---and overgrazing in the center of the pastures. Pugging and overgrazing counteract the benefits of nutrient distribution because the soil is less able to absorb the waste. The rotational grazer is thereby trapped."
- James McWilliams, The Unequal Distribution of Waste, james-mcwilliams.com, 27 August 2012.
August 27, 2012
bilby commented on the word pug
In John Milesius any man may reade
Of divels in Sarmatia honored
Call'd Kottri or Kibaldi ; such as wee
Pugs and hobgoblins call. Their dwellings bee
In corners of old houses least frequented,
Or beneath stacks of wood ; and these convented
Make fearfull noise in buttries and in dairies,
Robin good-fellowes some, some call them fairies.
- Thomas Heywood, 'Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells', 1635
June 25, 2022