: a piece of metal roughly shaped for subsequent processing
c
: a $50 gold piece
d
: a disk for insertion in a slot machine
especially: one used illegally instead of a coin
3
: any of numerous chiefly terrestrial pulmonate gastropods (order Stylommatophora) that are found in most parts of the world where there is a reasonable supply of moisture and are closely related to the land snails but are long and wormlike and have only a rudimentary shell often buried in the mantle or entirely absent
4
: a smooth soft larva of a sawfly or moth that creeps like a mollusk
5
a
: a quantity of liquor drunk in one swallow
b
: a detached mass of fluid (such as water vapor or oil) that causes impact (as in a circulating system)
6
a
: a strip of metal thicker than a printer's lead
b
: a line of type cast as one piece
c
: a usually temporary type line serving to instruct or identify
7
: the gravitational unit of mass in the foot-pound-second system to which a pound force can impart an acceleration of one foot per second per second and which is equal to the mass of an object weighing 32 pounds
Noun (1)
he's always a slug in the morning, which is why he prefers to sleep late
knocked back another slug of whiskey Noun (2)
one well aimed slug on the head knocked him out Verb (2)
she got so angry that she slugged the back of the chair and knocked it over
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Noun
California has 42 official state symbols after Governor Newsom signed three bills to create new symbols in 2024, including the Dungeness crab as the state crustacean, the banana slug as the state slug, and the black abalone as the state seashell.—Martha McHardy, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Oct. 2025 Some swimming snails have lost their protective shells (more like swimming slugs), while others retain them.—Literary Hub, 25 Sep. 2025
Verb
Outside of outfielder Jackson Chourio and catcher William Contreras, Milwaukee will not be trying to slug, which will limit the holes available for the Dodgers to exploit.—Andy McCullough, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2025 Power surge The Padres are slugging more lately.—Kevin Acee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 24 Sep. 2025 See All Example Sentences for slug
Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
Middle English slugge, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian dialect slugga to walk sluggishly
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