slug

Meaning

1. Any of many terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks, having no (or only a rudimentary) shell.
2. (obsolete) 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.
13. A piece of type metal imprinted by a linotype machine; also a black mark placed in the margin to indicate an error; also said in application to typewriters; type slug.
14. A stranger picked up as a passenger to enable legal use of high occupancy vehicle lanes.
15. (slang) A hitchhiking commuter.
16. The last part of a clean URL, the displayed resource name, similar to a filename.
17. (obsolete) A hindrance, an obstruction.
18. A ship that sails slowly.
19. A block of text at the beginning of a scene that sets up the scene's location, characters, etc.

snail

🐌

type slug

fuel slug

semi-finished product

be lazy

lazy person

workblank

sea-slug

field slug

be inert

naked snail

dilly-dallier

dillydallier

nudibranch

poker chip

slug-worm

semi-finished metal

cross lock

fuel brick

fuel clump

be slow

have intercourse

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/slʌɡ/

Originally referred to a slow, lazy person, from Middle English slugge (“lazy person", also "slowth, slothfulness”), probably of either Old English or Old Norse origin; compare Norn slug (“lazy, slothful, sluggish”), dialectal Norwegian slugg (“a large, heavy body”), sluggje (“heavy, slow person”), Danish slog (“rascal, rogue”); 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 also Dutch slak (“snail, slug”). Doublet of slotch.