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Tug   Listen
verb
Tug  v. t.  (past & past part. tugged; pres. part. tugging)  
1.
To pull or draw with great effort; to draw along with continued exertion; to haul along; to tow; as, to tug a loaded cart; to tug a ship into port. "There sweat, there strain, tug the laborious oar."
2.
To pull; to pluck. (Obs.) "To ease the pain, His tugged cars suffered with a strain."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tug" Quotes from Famous Books



... agitation, she forgot to arouse the chateau, but undertook to ascertain the truth for herself. Rushing over, she grasped the knotted end of the rope. A glance and a single tug were sufficient to convince her that the other end was attached to a support at the top of the cliff. It hung limp and heavy, lifeless. A sharp tug from above caused it to tremble violently in her hands; she dropped it as if it were a serpent. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... ladey's hair appears nowadays, the hire she stands in the eyes of the Bon tung. A waterfall which will go into a store door without the wearer stoopin over, hain't considered of suffishent altitood for a fashinable got-up femme de sham to tug around. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various

... seized her. She grasped the bell and tugged and tugged until she could tug no more. The bell jangled and pealed and clattered reverberatingly from the gloomy house, and then, with a jarring of wires, relapsed into silence. Barbara beat on the door with her hands, for there was no knocker; but all remained still within. Only the dank mist swirled in ever denser ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... a tug at his sleeve. He jerked around. At his elbow was the Mexican cook. He motioned to himself, then toward the cellar. Then he ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker

... in a bird's life will furnish an answer to several of these questions. Two sparrows were seen attempting to take possession of the same straw. Each held firmly to his end of the straw. A regular tug of war ensued. They pulled one another about for some time on the top of an awning, and finally, becoming tired of this, they dropped the straw and furiously attacked each other. They fought with beak and claw, paying no attention to the spectators, and fell exhausted to the sidewalk, ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock

... the man dropped out of sight. The coal-smeared comrade who had charge of the twine paid it out delicately fathom by fathom. It was the only link between the adventurer down below and the chance of life, and the merest tug at it would have caused an immediate reversal of the engine and would have brought him back to bank. But no signal came, and for anything that anybody there could have told, the man below might have been suffocated by the smoke. There was not a sound to ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... line does sort of—well, tug at your heart-strings, doesn't it?" She smiled, almost wistfully. "Say, Billy, when you reach the Eagle House at Waterloo, tell Annie, the head-waitress to rustle you a couple of Mrs. Traudt's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... long in playing, however. Soon the Baronessa swept to her friend's side, and bore her away, like a large steam-tug making off against wind and tide with a dainty ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... speed of 7 1/2 knots, and it was only by sheer good luck, and with the assistance of salvage tugs and appliances from Hong-Kong, that she was ever got off at all. As it was she was merely badly damaged, and came back into harbour in tow of one tug, while a couple of others, with their pumps working at full speed and gushing forth streams of ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... another was carried to the roadway, and now and then a passer-by of a benevolent disposition, or with nothing better to do, or, it may be, standing in some degree of relationship to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... a quick glance into the gilt-framed mirror close by. She smoothed a stray wisp of hair which had escaped from under her lace cap: she gave a tug to her fichu and a pat to her skirts. Then, as the folding doors were once more thrown open, and Hector—stiff, solemn and pompous—appeared under the lintel, Madame threw back her head in the grand manner pertaining to the old ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... went to our friend the dear old Evangelist there, the blind old man. He and his wife are lights in that dark town. It is so refreshing to spend half an hour with two genuine good old Christians after a tug of war with the heathen; they have no idea they are helping you, but they are, and you return home ever so much the happier for ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... all! What a to-do!" muttered Mme Gabin. "Now for the tug of war, as the coast is ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... made a stand, but the mate was ready for him. Dodging the straight left, Pete hurled himself forward and seized the burly Frenchman in his arms. Then, with a tug and a wrench, as though he were uprooting a tree, he lifted his opponent and crashed him down to ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... in my new scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low—the Hayes, the Fowles, the Fanners, the Collinses—they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir John Pelham up yonder to Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done except I stood ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... the coast was clear, attached himself to the handle with a prehensile grasp, and put his back into one strenuous tug. It was even as Renford had said. The door was ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse

... boat Alexander la Valley, 1200 tons, makes the passage—the first vessel by steam. February 1 the ocean tug Reliance, Captain R. C. Thompson, having steamed around the Horn returns to the Atlantic through the canal—the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... nowt.' And, getting up, she cleared the table and put the food away with even greater rapidity than usual. The kitchen was no sooner quite clear than the donkey-cart was heard outside, and David appeared, crimsoned with heat, and panting from the long tug uphill, through which he ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... attempted to draw up the rod. There was an ugly tug and a crack as he did so, and he found, to his disgust, that the hook, having nothing else to catch, had caught the ivy on the wall, and, what was worse, that the top joint of the rod had either snapped ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... lay in great uneasiness. At length I struggled to get loose, and managed to break the strings and pull up the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground. Then with a violent tug that caused me much pain I broke the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, and was then able to ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... the old man as he stood over the sled, and saw the huge box that was on it. "Lord-a-massy, Bill! what a tug ye must have had! and how ye come to be sober with sech a load behind ye is beyend the reckinin' of a man who has knowed ye nigh on to twenty year. I never knowed ye disapp'int ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... seizing his wife by the arm. "Are you mad, if not explain this extraordinary conduct of yours. Where have you been?" She turned, gazed into her husband's eyes for a moment, then with one vigorous tug, she wrenched her arm from his grasp and proceeded up the steps. The mother by this time had joined her son, and they both followed the young lady who had entered her room and ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton

... the very best in the place," said he. "You must not suppose he is in a small way because you see him in that little office: he is one of the largest tug and flat owners in New Orleans. He keeps his eye on his men, and will push you forward if he sees you deserve it. He has the name of having the best of captains on the river, and of being one of the best and most liberal ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... the Youngish Girl felt a tug at her coat, and, turning round quickly, found herself staring with dazed eyes into the eager, childish face of the Traveling Salesman's red-cloaked wife. Not thirty feet away from her the Traveling Salesman's shameless, stolid-looking ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... may know that every hour that passes for years, your wall is hardening. These things move slowly, too. All that has to do with stone-work is a slow process. In the very lifting, the masons learn that muscles must not tug or jerk, but lift slowly. The mortar that hardens ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... and told them we would make this, our first Sunday in the bush, an easy one, and simply move our camp forward to a more hospitable and sheltered spot by a little brook a mile up the trail, and then be ready for the "tug of war" on Monday. ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... He had to tug thrice before a discordant bell sounded within the house, and twice again before footsteps began ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... detached from the fastening to which it is hung, she flings herself madly on her treasure and lovingly embraces it, ready to bite whoso would take it from her. I myself am sometimes the thief. I then hear the points of the poison-fangs grinding against the steel of my pincers, which tug in one direction while the Lycosa tugs in the other. But let us leave the animal alone: with a quick touch of the spinnerets, the pill is restored to its place; and the Spider strides off, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... the perch for bait; but I didn't try for sharks, for of course a boy wouldn't be strong enough to haul such big fellows in. I tell you the men had a hard tug, especially with the blue-dog. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... of C sharp minor or F major in her hair. The trick lies in the tone-color—in the flabbergasting magic of the orchestration. There are some moments in "Elektra" when sounds come out of the orchestra that tug at the very roots of the hair, sounds so unearthly that they suggest a caroling of dragons or bierfisch—and yet they are made by the same old fiddles that play the Kaiser Quartet, and by the same old trombones that the Valkyrie ride like witch's broomsticks, and by the ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... on the bench within the arbour and set myself to read. A plank behind me had started, and after a while the edge of it began to gall my shoulders as I leant back. I tried once or twice to push it into its place, without success, and then, in a moment of irritation, gave it a tug. It came away in my hand, and something rolled out on the bench before me, and broke ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... There was no sound of voices in the streets. But occasionally, from far away in the direction of the river or the Lake Front, came the faint sounds of steamer and tug whistles. The sidewalks in either direction were deserted. Only a solitary policeman, his star pinned to the outside of his dripping rubber coat, his helmet shedding rivulets, stood on the corner absorbed in the contemplation of the ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... water, and a hand that dripped with slime grope for his cap. With three strides he was in the pond, and he caught the cap and the hand together in his fist. The hand writhed in his, but Hobb was too strong for it; and with a mighty tug he dragged first the shoulder and then the head belonging to the hand into view. They were the shoulder and head of the muddy man whom you, dear maidens, have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... a noble fittie-lan', [near horse of hindmost pair] As e'er in tug or tow was drawn! [hide or tow traces] Aft thee an' I, in aucht hours gaun, [eight, going] On guid March-weather, Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... or read Wedekind the more I admire his fund of humour. But I feel the tug of his theories. The dramatist in him is hampered by the theorist who would "reform" all life—he is neither a socialist nor an upholder of female suffrage—and when some of his admiring critics talk of his "ideals of beauty ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... before what a big, light, wallowing thing a balloon was. The car was of brown coarse wicker-work, and comparatively small. The rope he tugged at was fastened to a stout-looking ring, four or five feet above the car. At each tug he drew in a yard or so of rope, and the waggling wicker-work was drawn so much nearer. Out of the car came wrathful bellowings: "Fainted, she has!" and then: "It's her heart—broken with all she's ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... though they were wrestling with an invisible octopus. Feet were lifted high, but never free of the twining vegetation; the ladder was pulled angrily forward, but the clutch of the grass upon it became firmer with every tug. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... did go, after being there four days and nights; and after a long tug over seas and mountains, arrive at the palace of the old King, who is the master of all the birds in the world. And the King is very proud to see them, and has a hearty welcome and a long conversation. Jack opens the little box, and told ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... that the deadly tug did cease in the case supposed. It lasted long—very long; but, when the limits of resistance, of human strength, were past—that is, after they had fought for ten hours, then the deadly tug did cease. Therefore ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... strong champions. Strive now if of your strength you may move these stones, and carry them from their seat." The young men therefore encompassed the stones before, behind, and on every side, but heave and tug as mightily as they could, the stones for all their travail would not budge one single inch. "Bestir yourselves," cried Merlin, "on, friends, on. But if by strength you can do no more, then you shall see that skill and knowledge are of richer worth than thews and fleshly ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... calico-wrappered knight had thrown himself and his lady out into the great drifts on the side. Split felt the cold fleeciness of new-fallen snow on her face, down her neck, up her sleeves. She was smothered, drowned in it, when with another tug the boy whirled her to her feet, and swaying unsteadily, she looked up into the face of the man whose horses had so nearly crushed ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... her, And turn her and tug her, And turn her again boy, again, Then if she mumble, Or if her tail tumble, Kiss her amain hoy, amain. Do thy endeavour, To take off her feaver, Then her disease no longer will raign. If nothing will serve her, ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... L9000. I therefore determined upon a "Safer Khoriyyah," that is, steaming by day and anchoring at night in some snug bay. It was also agreed, nem. con., to tow the Sambuk El-Musahhil, in order that, should accidents happen, it might in turn act tug to the steamer; or even, at a pinch, serve ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... been connected with visions of another possible half-crown, or it might have been in an honest desire to do his duty as a guardian of the public safety. At any rate, John Whyley gave a vigorous tug at Dr Chartley's ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... reckon you don't. They finished loading her last night, and we moored her out in the channel, ready for the tug this morning. Before midnight she was leaking there like a basket, and by seven this morning she was leaking worse than a five-barred gate. The tug had just time to pluck us alongside here, or she'd have sunk at her moorings; and when we'd warped her steady and the tide left ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... seek safety in flight, when suddenly he felt a bite in his left calf, and saw the brute Bismarck tug away at his leg as if it had been a mutton-chop. He had scarcely recovered from this surprise when he heard a sharp report, and a bullet whizzed away over his head, after having neatly put a hole through the right ear. Paul concluded, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... lots of trouble and I saw a good deal of it. When it was all over, I found myself in command of a gun boat, just a tug, but she was alive and had accounted for herself ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... sword aside, and walked deliberately over to the oak thicket. Choosing from among the shoots and saplings he found a stout little tree to his liking, when he laid hold of it, without stopping to cut it, and gave a tug. Up it came root and all, as though it were a stalk of corn, and the stranger walked back trimming it as quietly as though pulling up trees were the easiest ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... is certainly not the resistless movement of the intrigue which makes the "Misanthrope," "Tartufe," the "Precieuses Ridicules," masterpieces of comedy as well as of literature. Their dramatic value lies in their piquancy of confrontation. The tug-of-war between Alceste and Celimene, between Rodrigue and Chimene in "Le Cid," is what we think of as dramatic; and it is this same element which is found as well in the complicated and overflowing English plays. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... could only deepen the startling influence Beulah Sands had already won over my ordinarily sane and cool-headed comrade. As I looked at my friend, burning with an ardour as unaccustomed as it was impulsive, I felt a tug at my heartstrings at thought of the sudden cross-roading of his life's highway. But I, too, was filled with the glamour of this girl's wondrous beauty, and her terrible predicament appealed to me almost as strongly as it had to Bob. So, although I knew it ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... barges unsafely bestowed, and suggested to the captain of the Hallam yard tug boat that he should tow them into a securer anchorage. As night was at hand the captain of the tug refused, saying that he would attend to the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees. In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they saw ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... in a tree, he will sometimes climb after him and, standing as near as the upper limbs allow, will push and tug mightily to shake him off. That is usually a vain attempt; for the creature that sleeps sound and secure through a gale in the tree-tops has no concern for the ponderous shakings of a bear. In that case Mooween, if he can get near enough without ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long

... foresail the vessel swung around as the dock lines were let go. Gathering speed with the force of a favorable wind the little vessel plunged ahead. Von Kluck was evidently planning on leaving the harbor without the use of a tug—a somewhat difficult, if not ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson

... murmuring voices, and his eyes to the pale, expressive faces, to put his great profession from him, as one puts a beggar into the night. But these were only moments, and they passed quickly. And the little doctor was always bitterly ashamed of them, as a brave man is ashamed of a secret tug of cowardice at his heart. For it seemed to him the greatest thing in all the world to help to make the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... to his bosom, and went on, still praising Blossy,—this innocent old gentleman,—heedless of Angy's gentle tug at his coat-tail; while Blossy buried her absurdly lovely old face in the pink flush of a wild-rose spray, and the other old ladies stared from him to her, their ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... etc., went up to the railroad bridge, cooking tea and spreading bread and butter as we went. A tremendous thunder-storm came up, in the midst of which the men were found, put on freight-cars, and pushed to the landing;—fed, washed, and taken on the tug to 'The Elm City.' Dr. Ware, in his hard working on shore, had found fifteen other sick men without food or shelter,—there being 'no room' in the tent-hospital. He had studied the neighborhood extensively for shanties; found one, and put his men in it for the night. In the morning we ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... is concentrated upon an object, this object must develop and prove interesting, otherwise there will be required every few seconds the same tug of the will. This concentration by voluntary attention is essential, but cannot be permanent. To secure enduring concentration we may have to "pull ourselves together'' occasionally, but the necessity for such efforts should be reduced. This is accomplished ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott

... laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; 220 And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... and I jumped into the water. The buck made a rush forward, but at that moment a mass of yellow hair dangled before his eyes as the true old dog hung upon his cheek. Now came the tug of war—only one seizer! The spring had been so great, and the position of the buck was so secure, that the dog had missed the ear, and only held by the cheek. The elk, in an instant, saw his advantage, and quickly thrusting his sharp brown antlers into the dog's chest, he reared to his full height ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... proceed, I shall begin with that curse to nations; which has spread terror and devastation through so many nations of antiquity, and which is raging to such a pitch at the present day in Spain and in Portugal. It had one tug in England, in France, and in the United States of America; yet the inhabitants thereof, do not learn wisdom, and erase it entirely from their dwellings and from all with whom they have to do. The fact is, the labor of slaves comes so cheap to the avaricious usurpers, and ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet

... plentiful and might, like many other sorts of beings, be lured to their undoing by curiosity and greed. He cut a willow pole, stood back and cast out his gay bit of bait, letting it drift with the riffles. There came a quick tug, another, sharp and vigorous, and he swung his prize out of the water, breaking the surface into scattering jewels, flashing in the sunlight as it struck against the grass along ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... sashay down to little old 'Frisco. Slide up to Third and Market just about two or three a.m. when they are running the morning papers off the press. Read the latest news. Then make a swift sneak for San Quentin, get here before the newspaper tug crosses the bay, and tell me what you read. Then we'll wait and get a morning paper, when it comes in, from a guard. Then, if what you told me is in that paper, I am with you ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... timber fixed through the deck of a steam-tug for making the tow-rope fast to. Also, a similar post in canal barges to keep the tow-line up clear of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... chasse-maree [Fr.]; sloop, cutter, corvette, clipper, foist, yawl, dandy, ketch, smack, lugger, barge, hoy^, cat, buss; sailer, sailing vessel; windjammer; steamer, steamboat, steamship, liner, ocean liner, cruiseship, ship of the line; mail steamer, paddle steamer, screw steamer; tug; line of steamers &c. destroyer, cruiser, frigate; landing ship, LST; aircraft carrier, carrier, flattop [Coll.], nuclear powered carrier; submarine, submersible, atomic submarine. boat, pinnace, launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line, was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung, veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it twined itself like a white wraith about ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates

... and find out what they had on them.... It's a curious sport, this body fishing. You have a sort of triple hook on a rope, and you throw it and drag. They do the same. The other day one body near Hooghe was hooked by both sides, and they had a tug-of-war. With a sharpshooter or so cutting in whenever our men got too excited. Several men were hit. The Irish—it was an Irish regiment—got him—or at least they got ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... aisle I felt a sudden tug, then an ominous ripping. The floating chiffon overdrapery of my gown had caught in a seat. As Dicky bent to release me his face showed consternation. Almost a length of the dainty fabric trailed ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... course. But I can feel her tuggin' like a big bluefish trying to bolt with hook and sinker. Never did feel that same tug to sta'bo'd but once before on any craft. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... collegians, boiling out like bees swarming from a disturbed hive; Hefty Hollingsworth, the Herculean center-rush. Biff Pemberton, left half-back, Bunch Bingham, Tug Cardiff, and Buster Brown, three huge last-year substitutes; second-string players, Don Carterson, Cherub Challoner, Skeet Wigglesworth, and Scoop Sawyer. A dozen others, from sheer laziness, hugged their bunks devotedly, despite the terrific ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... chuckled a good deal at her own mistakes with the cards, and then asked Lucille for some music. The girl sat down at the piano, and there, to her own accompaniment, without the printed score, sang such songs of Provence as tug at the heart strings, one knows not why. There seemed to be a wail in the music—and in slurring, as it were, from one note to the other—a trick such Southern songs demand—I heard the tone ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... by a perfect blaze of rifles. Every man fired at random. At least a dozen bullets crashed against the rock. A violent tug at his left sleeve and some spatters of hot lead on his cheek showed that one missile had come too near to be pleasant. After passing through his coat it had splashed on the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... Ralph had not gone more than fifty yards down the dusty road leading from the recreation field to the town center, perhaps a full mile away, when Ralph felt a sharp tug ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes

... and bill-stickers, for the inexperienced or the uninspired: the dull haberdasher came to him for ideas, the smart theatrical agent for his local knowledge; and one and all departed with a copy of his pamphlet: How, When, and Where; or, the Advertiser's Vade-Mecum. He had a tug chartered every Saturday afternoon and night, carried people outside the Heads, and provided them with lines and bait for six hours' fishing, at the rate of five dollars a person. I am told that some of them (doubtless adroit anglers) made a profit on the transaction. Occasionally ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... tug of war between these two good men, in which I could discern that my father's refusal was solely based upon his love for me and his apprehension for my safety. The tug of words, like a tug of war at an athletic meeting, was a long one, first one gained an advantage ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... A little tug at his leg interrupts his train of thought, and he becomes aware that the child is standing at his side, his first impulse is to push her away roughly, but the little thing is looking up at him so gravely. 'Mummy says,' she begins, 'that she doesn't know who ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton

... feat has been accomplished without any serious injury. It is reported that on June 20, 1896, a youth of nineteen made a headlong dive from the top of the Eads bridge at St. Louis, Mo., a distance of 125 feet. He is said to have swum 250 feet to a waiting tug, and was taken on board ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... "Now for the tug of war," said Frank, in a low, subdued tone, loud enough to be heard by all his crew, but so gentle as not to create any of that dangerous excitement which is sometimes the ruin of ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... the afternoon the little tug "Napo," having on board Admiral Tucker, the rebel, who, with some associates, is exploring the tributaries of the Upper Amazon for the Peruvian government. They had just returned from a voyage of two hundred and fifty miles up the Javari. One ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... 1892 I felt that I had sufficient knowledge of law to begin practising. I left Virginia and returned to Alabama. The tug of war had now begun. I found it exceedingly difficult to get examined. After trying for five months, I succeeded in getting a lawyer, a Mr. Thompson, of Macon County, Ala., to recommend me to the chancery court of that ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... moved out of the living-room window, but a light still showed beyond the panes. He pulled over to the curb and turned off the ignition. He gave one of Zarathustra's over-sized ears a playful tug, absently noting a series of small nodules along its lower extremity. "Come on, Zarathustra," he said. "I may as well deliver you personally while ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young

... them is this,—we will go this evening, after the workmen have gone home, and tug them over here, and make the wharf long before bedtime;" and Benjamin looked queerly as ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... express himself as plainly as he would like to do, that he suffers from aphasia. Now he shows as a black dog, now as a green lady, now as an old man, and often he can only rap and knock, or display a light, or tug the bed-clothes. Thus the Rev. F. G. Lee tells us that a ghost first sat on his breast invisibly, then glided about his room like a man in grey, and, finally, took to thumping on the walls, the bed and in the ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang

... an entr'acte in life; the serious thing is the scene de theatre, wherever it takes place. Therefore it was that the black, shaky-looking houses, leaning over the quays, were now populous with frowsy heads and cotton nightcaps. The captains from the adjacent sloops and tug-boats formed an outer circle about the closer ring made by the competitors for our favors, while the loungers along the parapets, and the owners of top seats on the shining quay steps, may be said to have been in possession of orchestra ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... a similar outrage on boat parties on May 18, 1915, at Banias, near Latakia; a tug and a boat belonging to the D'Estrees were fired on from roofs and landing places while chasing a merchantman belonging to the enemy that was seeking refuge in the port. As a punishment for the treachery of the civilians, who had posed as peaceable inhabitants until the French boats ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... to reach London with tea of the new crop. The Lord of the Isles finished loading and sailed four days ahead of the Maury, and after thirteen thousand miles of ocean they passed Gravesend within ten minutes of each other. The British skipper, having the smartest tug and getting his ship first into dock, won the honors. In a similar race between the American Sea Serpent and the English Crest of the Wave, both ships arrived off the Isle of Wight on the same day. It was a notable fact that the Lord of the Isles ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... stern foe of mortal life, Feast on!—but think not that a strife, With such promiscuous carnage rife, Protracted space may last; The deadly tug of war at length Must limits find in human strength, And cease when these are past. Vain hope!—that morn's o'erclouded sun Heard the wild shout of fight begun Ere he attained his height, And through the ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... parted company with our steam-tug, and next morning, whilst off the Isle of Wight, our pilot also took his departure. Sea-sickness now became the fashion, but, as I cannot speak from experience of its sensations, I shall altogether decline the ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... beautifully; my wife at the counter (behind the tray of patent soaps, &c.) cut as handsome a figure as possible; and it was my hope that Orlando and my girl, who were mighty soft upon one another, would one day be joined together in Hyming, and, conjointly with my son Tug, carry on the business of hairdressers when their father was either dead or a gentleman: for a gentleman me and Mrs. C. determined ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fellow, heavy to lift in his present lumpish condition of dead-weight! She had to tug mightily to get him up into a sitting position. When he was raised, all the backbone seemed gone from his spine, and it took the whole force of her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... wise woman reached down her hand, took one of Rosamond's, and, lifting her to her feet, led her along through the moonlight. Every now and then a gush of obstinacy would well up in the heart of the princess, and she would give a great ill-tempered tug, and pull her hand away; but then the wise woman would gaze down upon her with such a look, that she instantly sought again the hand she had rejected, in pure terror lest she should be eaten upon the spot. And so they would walk on again; and when the wind blew the folds of ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald

... 1st, The metallic hames tug, A, provided with the V-shaped openings, C, having inclined sides, and the tongues, D, adapted to receive the V-shaped block, O, formed upon the block, N, of the trace strap and block, O, held in place by means of ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... fair is it, ay, and no less fragrant than the cases of aromatics in your shop when you are pounding the cumin: and therein are beds that you would find more goodly than that of the Doge of Venice, and 'tis in them we take our rest; and how busily they ply the treadle, and how lustily they tug at the frame to make the stuff close and compact, I leave you to imagine. However, among the luckiest of all I reckon Buffalmacco and myself; for that Buffalmacco for the most part fetches him the Queen ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... evident annoyance. "What are you looking at, David?" he said, with a tug at my arm. "Shame! ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... tug-of-war has been in progress for the last two afternoons. Our unit, which is the largest on board, had four teams, two of them managing to reach the semifinal rounds when their opponents knocked them out, but only after a ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... as if he were looking for something, something which should help him to solve the problem, he began to tug at the handles which ornamented the drawers of her writing-table; all the drawers were locked. As if by accident he opened the drawer of the little table by her bedside, and hastily closed it again, but not before he had read the title on the paper-cover ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... unknown. His pipe glowed, as with the profanity of an immortal to whom eternity and infinity are of the usual significance. Then a red and green eye appeared astern, and there was a steady throbbing as if some monster were in pursuit of us. A tug shaped near us, drew level, and exposed with its fires, as it went ahead, a radiant Lizzie on an area of water that leaped in red flames. The furnace door of the tug was shut, and at once we were blind. "Hold hard," ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... of the servants, however, had no parental string at which Mrs. Pilcher could tug, and the consequence was, that they decided that she was an insufferable bore. Old John, in particular, felt the ill effects of the heir of Applebite's appearance in the family, and to such a degree did ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... and sent one to the boat and one on board the barge. The barge was within hail; so the cases were checked as they passed out of the store, and checked again at the small boat, and also on board the lighter. When they were all cleared out, Wylie gave Seaton his receipt for them, and, having a steam-tug in attendance, towed the lighter alongside ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... stupid!" cried Evadne, with a protesting tug at my arm "It's nothing to do with me. It ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... little woman, Lucy," and he kissed her. "Now, here is my plan. I can raise nearly a thousand pounds. I shall buy the Dolphin steam tug—I can get her on easy terms of payment—fill her with coal and stores, and go to Kent's Group in Bass's Straits, and try and refloat the Braybrook Castle. I saw the agents and the insurance people this morning—immediately after I left old Bodway. If I float her, ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke

... half-frozen Italians clung to the great heaps like so many frightened flies, when the waves rose and tossed the unwieldy scows about, bumping one against the other, though they were strung out in a long row behind the tug, quite a distance apart. One sea washed entirely over the last scow and nearly upset it. When it floated even again, two of the crew were missing, one of them Paolo's father. They had been washed away and lost, miles from shore. No one ever saw ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... "Nice tug the hoss had, but she brought it well out on to the hard road, and there I rested just a quarter of an hour, giving a holler now ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... of argument, that an advance of 30 millions had been made under the Act for the Purchase of Land in Ireland, and that seventeen years was about the average value under Lord ASHBOURNE'S Act, there was a sudden tug of the right coat-tail; Prince leaned over in that direction; OLD MORALITY whispered in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various

... the change. From the pier where we landed, a small boy, in a long black tunic belted in at his waist, was fishing; he hooked a little fingerling. At the first tentative tug on his line he set up a shrill clamor. At that there came running a fat, kindly looking old priest in a long gown and a shovel hat; and a market woman came, who had arms like a wrestler and skirts that stuck out like a ballet dancer's; and a soldier in baggy red ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... his side, stooping as she passed under the low bow of the cover frame. She stood upright, a tall and gracious figure, upon the wagon floor in front of the seat, and shaded her eyes as she looked about her. Her presence caused Sam to instinctively straighten up and tug at his open coat. He took off his hat with a memory of other days, and said his "Good-mornin'" as the schoolboy does to his teacher—superior, revered, ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... Shoreham harbour one gets such life at its laziest. The smell of tar; the sound of hammers; the laughter and whistling of the loafers; the continuous changing of the tide; the opening of the lock gates; the departure of the tug; its triumphant return, leading in custody a timber-laden barque from the Baltic, a little self-conscious and ashamed, as if caught red-handed in iniquity by this fussy little officer; the independent sailing of a grimy steamer ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas

... gave a long sigh of content and leaned back, crossing his arms. The strain was over. He felt he could have sat there for ever sighing his relief—the relief at being rid of that horrible tug, pull, grip on his heart. The danger was over. That was the feeling. They were on dry ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield

... give a hard tug and presto! the upper half of the seat swings open and turns over like this. There we have a wide bed with ready-made mattress and all that goes to form a ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... fiery eyes— Two tawny lions—rival monarchs—meet And fright the forest with their horrid roar; But ere they close in bloody combat crouch And wait and watch for vantage in attack; So on their bannered hills the opposing hosts, Eager to grapple in the tug of death, Waited and watched for vantage in the fight. Noon came. The fire of pickets died away. All eyes were turned to Seminary Ridge, For lo our sullen foemen—park on park— Had massed their grim artillery on our corps. ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... hopeless. Torrance read it at a glance, unaccustomed as he was to water. The tug of the rapids was drawing them swiftly downward in a course that was too slightly diagonal to its current to promise more than the faintest hope. The man seemed suddenly to grasp the extent of their peril, for his arms moved more quickly, the ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... the grounds the picnic parties left their tables to join in. Five thousand packed the grassy slopes of the amphitheater and swarmed inside the race track. Here, first of the events, the men were lining up for a tug of war. The contest was between the Oakland Bricklayers and the San Francisco Bricklayers, and the picked braves, huge and heavy, were taking their positions along the rope. They kicked heel-holds in the soft earth, rubbed their hands ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... occasions he did observe a little steam-tug, going about a knot an hour, and rolling like a washing-tub. He ran down to her, and asked if he could assist her; she answered, through the medium of a sooty animal at her helm, that she was (like our universities) "satisfied ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... surgeon born in him, and confirmed by training. Some of his operations are perfectly beautiful, beautiful! He'll be famous over the whole world yet. His mother was an Irish charwoman, and she and he had a terrible tug to carry him through ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... Hotel. A white clerk and a coloured gentleman whom, in my plain European way, I should call the boots, were installed behind a counter like bank tellers. They took my name, assigned me a number, and proceeded to deal with my packages. And here came the tug of war. I wished to give up my packages into safe keeping; but I did not wish to go to bed. And this, it appeared, was impossible in an ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... an infernal tug at the boatswain's immense whisker, and fairly carried away a part of it, making his way through the crowd, and down below with the speed of an arrow. The infuriated boatswain, finding he had passed so rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... backward swayed the stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed astern the captured piles of London Bridge. A great shout went up from the besiegers, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... it must never be. Having come to this conclusion he waited until the subject should be broached by either of his parents, knowing very well that when that topic should be discussed, then would come the tug of war, and he was not at all anxious for it. It soon came however, his father proposed that he should bring his bride there, saying, "there is plenty of room for all." But Charles was not so sure of that, and feared that the house might ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... Then he felt a tug at his hair, and that was his cap, which he had put on inside out, and which was anxious to be off and join in the fun. And his spade, which he had left lying on the ground outside, came running in at the place where the door had been, stirring ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe



Words linked to "Tug" :   labour, force, towboat, pull, struggle, displace, tugboat, helm, jerk, attract, labor, bear on, pull in, push, reach, contend, carry, tote, tower, boat, move, drive, fight, draw, strive, strain



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