tug

1. 1.

   a sudden abrupt pull

   Synonymsjerk

   Broaderpull
2. 2.

   a powerful small boat designed to pull or push larger ships

   Synonymstugboattowboattower

   Broaderboat

   Partshelm

Other forms of tug

plural

tugs·

past tense or participle

tugged

present participle

tugging

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tug

What does tug mean?

tug means "pull hard". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tug?

tug has 1 syllable: tug. In IPA it is /ˈtʌɡ/.

What is another word for tug?

Close synonyms include labor, labour, push, drive, lug. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tug a common word?

tug is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.