slug

Meaning

Noun

1. Any of many 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. (rare) 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 used to separate broadcast items.
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. (regional) A stranger picked up as a passenger to enable legal use of high occupancy vehicle lanes.
15. (US, 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.
20. An infertile egg of a reptile.

Verb

1. To drink quickly; to gulp; to down.
2. To take part in casual carpooling; to form ad hoc, informal carpools for commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking.
3. (intransitive) To become reduced in diameter, or changed in shape, by passing from a larger to a smaller part of the bore of the barrel.
4. (intransitive, obsolete) To move slowly or sluggishly; to lie idle.
5. (transitive) To load with a slug or slugs.
6. To make sluggish.

Verb

To hit very hard, usually with the fist.

Synonyms

snail

🐌

bullet

punch

👊

shot

hit

smack

biff

slog

wallop

droop

sluggard

swig

clout

type slug

beat up

idle

knock down

beat

thwack

ball

whip

fuel slug

whack

laze

sock

blank

spank

poke

ammunition

lick

stagnate

draught

cuff

be slow

club

belt

bar

clobber

chip

cartridge

lead

cannon ball

bang

assault

lash

cane

laggard

leading

leech

bean

Translations

limace

Nacktschnecke

babosa

lesma

lumaca

slak

🐌

naaktslak

Schnecke

🐌

llimac

caracol

🐌

lumaca gigante

escargot

🐌

limax

balle

pallottola

Pronounced as (IPA)

/slʌɡ/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: slugge

Inherited from Old English: -

Cognate with Norn: slug

Cognate with Norwegian: slugg

Cognate with Danish: slog

Cognate with Old Norse: slókr

Cognate with Icelandic: slókur

Cognate with Dutch: slak

Cognate with German: Schlag

Cognate with Dutch: slag

In summary

Originally referred to a slow, lazy person, from Middle English slugge (“lazy person", also "sloth, 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.
The sense of a hitchhiking commuter is from the sense of a counterfeit bus token. Bus operators considered sluggers to be cheating as if they were using counterfeit tokens.