bug

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to annoy persistently

   They are really bugging me.

2. 2
   verb

   to tap a telephone or telegraph wire to get information

   The cops are bugging our phones.

3. 3
   noun

   Any of various species of marine (saltwater or freshwater) crustaceans; e.g. a Moreton Bay bug, mudbug.

   Bugs, oysters, prawns and crabs […] are plated up on the decks of four side-by-side trawlers bobbing on the calm waters of Trinity Inlet.

4. 4
   noun

   Any insect, or sometimes an arachnid, crustacean, or other arthropod, especially one that is small, terrestrial, or seen as a pest.

   These flies are a bother. I’ll get some bug spray and kill them.

5. 5
   noun

   A bedbug.

   Speaking of advertising changes of name, a title by which those lodging-house pests, bugs, are now often known, that of Norfolk Howards, is derived from an advertisement in which one Ephraim Bug avowed his intention of being for the future known as Norfolk Howard.

6. 6
   noun

   A problem that needs fixing.

   The software bug led the computer to calculate 2 plus 2 as 3.

7. 7
   noun

   A contagious illness, or a pathogen causing it.

   He's got the flu bug.

8. 8
   noun

   An enthusiasm for something; an obsession.

   I caught the skiing bug while staying in the Alps.

Etymology

First attested in this form around 1620 (referring to a “bedbug”), from earlier bugge (“beetle”), from Middle English bugge (“scarecrow, hobgoblin”) which is traced alternatively to: * a Celtic root found in Scots bogill (“goblin, bugbear”) and obsolete Welsh bwg (“ghost, hobgoblin”); compare Welsh bwgwl (“threat, fear”) and Middle Irish bocanách (“supernatural being”). * Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”); compare Norwegian bugge (“big man”), dialectal Low German Bögge (“goblin, snot”). * or to a word related to buck and originally…