slug1
/slʌɡ
/noun
1A tough-skinned terrestrial mollusc which typically lacks a shell and secretes a film of mucus for protection. It can be a serious plant pest.
- Order Stylommatophora, class Gastropoda.
- Centipedes also eat slugs and smaller insect pests.
- Twenty slugs were filmed while receiving 10 swim-eliciting tail stimuli at a 2 min inter-trial interval.
2A slow, lazy person.If there's somebody sitting around saying, you know, I'm just a lazy slug, my first question is, ‘are you?’...
- The memos are self-defeating in that regard - why would the sort of low life slug who would write such a thing actually care enough to write such a thing?
- And maybe everything has added up to make a big old apathetic slug.
3An amount of alcoholic drink that is gulped or poured: he took a slug of whisky...
- Hearty Aussie reds like the latter go happily in a sangria-style mix - slip a couple of orange slices into each glass and add a whoosh of soda water, a clunk of ice-cubes and a slug of brandy if it's raining.
- Makes around 4 litres of cordial (which you can kick up a notch with a splash of soda water and a slug of your favourite gin).
- The last straw comes when three old Russian ladies snub my invitation to join our flotilla, dog-paddling away as if no one had ever offered them a slug of beer through a ten-foot hose.
4An elongated, typically rounded piece of metal: the reactor uses embedded slugs of uranium...
- For the first time in nearly two thousand years everyone everywhere was paying for everyday articles using slugs of base metal.
- For smaller vessels, this may be as easy as firing a copper slug into an outboard engine.
- I would have been shocked if we had because he was using an air gun with an enormous piece of slug instead of birdshot.
4.1chiefly North American A bullet, especially a lead one.Three slugs ripped through the space Karl had just vacated....
- Speaking of feminism, I am no feminist but I do like and respect women so I would have a strong urge to put a .50 calibre slug through the guy in this picture.
- One shot I missed clear, probably because my abilities were off, but one slug removed his left ear and a clump of his hair, yet the third bullet struck his right shoulder and caused him drop back to the floor.
4.2A missile for an airgun.I subsequently had a look and there were about 60 slugs from an air gun, all over the place on my property, the trajectory of which had obviously come over the kindergarten.
5A line of type in Linotype printing.Monotype machines cast single sorts; it was Linotypes that cast slugs....
- For those who recall the Imperial typewriter, the copy-takers and slugs of type set in hot metal, it is the next stage in the ongoing media revolution.
6 Computing A part of a URL which identifies a particular page on a website in a form readable by users: writers can edit the slug that will become an article or page URL...
- I've had a bit of a problem editing posts with a slug of 'miscellaneous' - for some reason when I republish the post, it likes to change the slug to ' miscellaneous - 2'.
- This function is what WordPress will use to generate the URL slugs from your post titles.
- Changing longer post slugs into short, keyword-centric slugs will increase your click-through rate in the search engine result pages and make your content easier to share.
verb (slugs, slugging, slugged) [with object]
Drink (something, typically alcohol) in a large draught; swig: she picked up her drink and slugged it straight back...
- She slugged the first drink down smoothly, then without any hesitation she grabbed the other drink and slugged it down too.
- Matt picked up the champagne bottle and slugged the wine straight down.
- She now slugged the remainder of her drink back in an attempt to numb her irritation.
Origin
Late Middle English (in the sense 'sluggard'): probably of Scandinavian origin; compare with Norwegian dialect slugg 'large heavy body'. Sense 1 dates from the early 18th century.
In medieval times a slug was a slow-moving lazy person, and over time the word came to describe any slow-moving animal or vehicle. For example, the big-game hunter William Baldwin, writing in 1863, described one of his horses as ‘an incorrigible slug’. It has been the term for a slimy snail-like creature since the early 18th century. A slug of whisky, or of lead, is probably the same word, but to slug someone is not, and is related to slog (early 19th century), and we do not know the origin of either. Sluggard is based on the rare verb slug, ‘to be lazy or slow’, which may be Scandinavian in origin and which is probably also the source of sluggish, ‘slow and lazy’.
Rhymes
slug2
/slʌɡ/informal, chiefly North American
verb (slugs, slugging, slugged) [with object]
1Strike (someone) with a hard blow: he was the one who’d get slugged...
- There they gather short, or editor-shortened, letters in which correspondents with opposing views slug away at each other on a topic selected by the editor.
- The man gave Mr. Love one huge slug in the face just as Tommy and Joe, the security guards, hurried up the stairs, Tommy huffing frantically.
- It wasn't a ladylike slap, it was an all-out, full-fisted slug to the jaw that could have broken his nose if she had been aiming for it.
1.1 (slug it out) Settle a dispute or contest by fighting or competing fiercely: they went outside to slug it out...
- After jabbing him early on, Rigby let his warrior instincts get the better of him and he ended up slugging it out in a fight which had the Wythenshawe Forum crowd on its feet.
- Students in York have been slugging it out in a competition to find the most popular piece of art in a city bar.
- Contestants slug it out to be the best news reader on TV and the winner goes into a head to head clash with Ms Bailey, as the viewer decides who gets the $800,000-a-year job.
noun
A hard blow.Adam frowned and gave him a hard slug in the shoulder....
- The final slug landed between Furchtner's eyes, and he tumbled out the window.
Origin
Mid 19th century: of unknown origin; compare with the verb slog.