tug: [13] Tug goes back to a prehistoric Germanic base *teukh- ‘pull’ (source also of German ziehen ‘pull’ and English truck [14], whose original meaning was ‘pull up, gather up’). This in turn was descended from Indo-European *deuk- ‘pull’, from which English gets conduct, duke, reduce, etc. => conduct, duct, duke, educate, reduce, tie, tow
tug (v.)
c. 1200, from weak grade of Old English teohan "to pull, drag," from Proto-Germanic *teuhan "to pull" (cognates: Old High German zucchen "to pull, jerk," German zücken "to draw quickly), from PIE root *deuk- "to lead" (see duke (n.)). Related to tow (v.). Related: Tugged; tugging.
tug (n.)
mid-14c., in reference to some part of a harness;" c. 1500 as "act of pulling or dragging," from tug (v.). Meaning "small, powerful vessel for towing other vessels" is recorded from 1817. Phrase tug of war (1670s) was originally figurative, "the decisive contest, the real struggle," from the noun in the sense "supreme effort, strenuous contest of forces" (1650s). As an actual athletic event, from 1876.
双语例句
1. She knows exactly how to tug at readers' heartstrings.
她对如何牵动读者的心弦了如指掌。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The tug crossed our stern not fifty yards away.