bug

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A small insect

   There are tiny bugs crawling all over the plant.

2. 2
   noun

   A mistake or fault in a computer program

   The new update fixed several bugs in the app.

3. 3
   noun

   A minor illness, especially one that spreads easily

   Half the office is off with a stomach bug.

4. 4
   verb

   To annoy someone repeatedly

   Stop bugging me while I'm trying to work.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Bug has an uncertain and unusually complex origin. Its insect senses developed differently in British and American English, while later American extensions included an obsessive enthusiast in the mid-19th century, a mechanical fault later that century, a computer fault in the mid-20th century, and a concealed microphone from the 1930s. The senses “germ” and, as a verb, “annoy” are also later developments.

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…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary