plug

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   insert as a plug

   We plugged the wine bottle with a cork.

2. 2
   verb

   insert a plug into

   plug the wall

3. 3
   verb

   persist in working hard

   Students must plug away at this problem

4. 4
   verb

   fill or close tightly with or as if with a plug

   plug the hole

5. 5
   noun

   A pronged connecting device which fits into a mating socket, especially an electrical one.

   I pushed the plug back into the electrical socket and the lamp began to glow again.

6. 6
   noun

   Any piece of wood, metal, or other substance used to stop or fill a hole.

   Pull the plug out of the tub so it can drain.

7. 7
   noun

   A flat oblong cake of pressed tobacco.

   He preferred a plug of tobacco to loose chaw.

8. 8
   noun

   A worthless horse.

   That sorry old plug is ready for the glue factory!

Etymology

From Dutch plug, from Middle Dutch plugge (“peg, plug”), from Old Dutch *pluggi, from Proto-West Germanic *plugi. Further origin unknown. Possibly from Proto-Germanic *plugjaz, but the word seems originally restricted to northern continental West Germanic. Perhaps ultimately from the same source as Dutch plag (“cut-out sod”), itself considered to be from a substrate. Compare German Low German Plüg, Norwegian plug (“peg, wedge”, probably borrowed from Middle Low German), German Pflock (“peg”, restricted to Central German and phonetically divergent). Possibly akin to Lithuanian plúkti (“to strik…