Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A steamer used for towing ships, boats, rafts, fishing-nets, oyster-dredges, etc.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And then again: you saw that ship being towed out by a steam-tug?

    Our Mutual Friend 2004

  • Musing in this way, and taking a last look at the green fields of old England, soaking with rain, and comfortless though they then looked, I soon became aware that we had weighed anchor, and that a small steam-tug which had been getting her steam up for some little time had already begun to subtract a mite of the distance between ourselves and New Zealand.

    A First Year in Canterbury Settlement 2004

  • When Syme stepped out on to the steam-tug he had a singular sensation of stepping out into something entirely new; not merely into the landscape of a new land, but even into the landscape of a new planet.

    The Man Who Was Thursday Gilbert Keith 2003

  • It might be worth while, one would think, to try a small steam-tug for the conveyance of cattle from

    Travels in Morocco 2003

  • And pouncing upon Polly, Maud dragged her away like a captured ship towed by a noisy little steam-tug.

    An Old-Fashioned Girl 1950

  • No friendly steam-tug was at hand to help them to windward, in case of the failure of this their first attempt, and both the lifeboatmen and the crew of the wrecked vessel knew the stake at issue, and that this was the last chance.

    Heroes of the Goodwin Sands Thomas Stanley Treanor

  • Summoned by the lightship's guns and rockets to the rescue -- for the red three-masted North Sand Head lightship was only two miles from the wreck -- the Ramsgate lifeboat, towed by the steam-tug Aid, came to the spot, and, after a long trial, failed to get the schooner afloat, and, having taken her crew out of her, returned to the shore.

    Heroes of the Goodwin Sands Thomas Stanley Treanor

  • Nor less celebrated than the lifeboat is her mighty and invaluable ally the steam-tug Aid, so often captained in the storm-blast by Alfred

    Heroes of the Goodwin Sands Thomas Stanley Treanor

  • Noisy Crisis towing black Panic, as a puffing steam-tug drags

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 Various

  • They reached Ramsgate Harbour at 7.30 a.m. and at 9 o'clock, without having gone ashore to breakfast, almost worn out, but borne up by dauntless spirit within, in response to a telegram from Broadstairs, the same steam-tug, lifeboat, coxswain and crew, again steamed out of

    Heroes of the Goodwin Sands Thomas Stanley Treanor

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