pug

• enPR: pŭg, IPA^(key): /pʌɡ/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

portrait of a pug

pug (plural pugs)

1. A small dog of an ancient breed originating in China, having a snub nose, wrinkled face, squarish body, short smooth hair, and curled tail. [from the 18th c]

   Synonyms: Chinese pug, Dutch bulldog, Dutch mastiff, mini mastiff, mops, carlin, pugdog

2. A bargeman. [from the 16th c]
3. (obsolete) chaff; the refuse of grain
   • 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, published 1635, →OCLC:

     rotten chaffe or pugs, and such like plain mullock

4. Any geometrid moth of the genus Eupithecia.

• foxglove pug (Eupithecia pulchellata)
• pug nose
• pug-nosed
• pug-ugly
• wormwood pug (Eupithecia absinthiata)

Corruption of puck, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”). Compare Icelandic púki (“demon”) and Welsh pwca (“hobgoblin”).

pug (plural pugs)

1. (obsolete) An elf or hobgoblin.
   • 1616, Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass:

     The great diuell. Pvg. The lesse diuell.

2. An upper servant in a great house. [from the 19th c]
3. A harlot; a prostitute. [circa 1600]
   • September 24 1600, Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, letter:

     the Lo. Admyrall and the Lord Threasurer with a couple of Pugges or some vscough baugh or some such toyes, it would shew that you do not neglect them, whoe, I protest, are to you wonderfull kynde.

• (mythological creature): puck, goblin, fairy

Abbreviation of pugilist, from Latin pugil.

pug (plural pugs)

1. (informal) One who fights with fists; a boxer.
   • 1988, Ken Blady, The Jewish Boxers Hall of Fame, page 226:

     He never trained for his characters either: with his slurred speech and disfigured mug he usually portrayed a punch-drunk ex-pug or comic tough guy, roles in which he was a natural.

Compare German pucken (“to thump, beat”).

pug (countable and uncountable, plural pugs)

1. Any compressed clay-like material mixed and worked into a soft, plastic condition for making bricks, pottery or for paving. (Also pug soil)
2. A pug mill.

• pug and pine

pug (third-person singular simple present pugs, present participle pugging, simple past and past participle pugged)

1. (transitive) To mix and stir when wet.

   to pug clay for bricks or pottery

2. (transitive) To fill or stop with clay by tamping; to fill in or spread with mortar, as a floor or partition, for the purpose of deadening sound.

From Hindi पग (pag, “step, foot”), related to Sanskrit पद्य (padya, “foot”) and Greek πόδι (pódi, “foot”).

pug (plural pugs)

1. The pawprint or footprint of an animal.
   • 1889, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, Pigsticking, page 56:

     And on closer investigation the abashed coolies discover that across the great square pug of the tiger runs the delicate tracing of the little field rat's toes […]

• pugmark

Probably related to puck.

pug (plural pugs)

1. (obsolete) A term of endearment. [from the 16th c]

Acronym of pickup group.

pug (plural pugs)

1. (online gaming) Alternative letter-case form of PuG (group of players who are unknown to each other, grouped together to work toward a short-term goal, such as completing a dungeon or a raid)

• GPU, gup

• IPA^(key): [puɡ]

pug (nominative plural pugs)

1. slaughter, slaughtering
2. butchery, butchering