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Tug   /təg/   Listen
Tug

noun
1.
A sudden abrupt pull.  Synonym: jerk.
2.
A powerful small boat designed to pull or push larger ships.  Synonyms: towboat, tower, tugboat.



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"Tug" Quotes from Famous Books



... Was it Fleur thus staring at the water? Jon had an unreal feeling as if he were passing through the scene in a book where the lover has to choose between love and duty. But just then she looked round at him. Never was anything so intoxicating as that vivacious look. It acted on him exactly as the tug of a chain acts on a dog—brought him up to her with his tail wagging and his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... bridge at a darkened London and the searchlight beams. Feverishly we packed our kit and stood up in the carriage. We jerked into the flare of Victoria. Dazzled and confused, we looked at the dense crowd of beaming, anxious people. There was a tug at my elbow, and a ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... I beheld this a lurid green glare lit the road about me and showed the distant woods towards Addlestone. I felt a tug at the reins. I saw that the driving clouds had been pierced as it were by a thread of green fire, suddenly lighting their confusion and falling into the field to my left. It was the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... I dislike close staterooms, I remained in the ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890. It was a beautiful moonlight night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the wharf. We reached Basingstoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... universal conception that people can be made to laugh only when one of us hides a pin on the seat of grandpa's chair. The burden of an entire nation's humour is more than we can sustain. Thank you, sir," and he retired into the background, giving, as he passed, just one tug at Mary Sparks's hair and eliciting a ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky

... and for want of other and better amusement walked to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug. She remembered she had a small bunch ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... had been issued; for she first luffed, as if to beat to windward and fight the British frigate beam to beam. Perhaps the courage of her commander suddenly failed him, and he came to the conclusion that he ought to ward off the real tug of war till his consort came up. Anyhow, just as a shot carried away a piece of her jib-boom she attempted to wear and fill, and in doing ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... The people going by had all disappeared in the most unaccountable manner, and Dorothy could see him quite plainly as he walked along, tacking from one side of the street to the other with a strange rattling noise, and blowing little puffs of smoke into the air like a shabby little steam-tug going ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl

... tug came bustling alongside. By the yellow flag he knew that it carried the quarantine officials, inspectors, and a few privileged citizens. Among others who came aboard Thomas noted a sturdy thick-chested man in a derby hat—bowler, Thomas called it. Quietly ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath

... shipwrecked signal to a sail on the horizon." "This" obviously meant for the young man exactly what surrounded him; he had begun, like Mr. Bender, to be conscious of a thick solicitation of the eye—and much more than he, doubtless, of a tug at the imagination; and he broke—characteristically, you would have been sure—into a great ...
— The Outcry • Henry James

... begins within himself, A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head, Satan looks up beneath his feet—both tug— He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... no great distance from the water side, though the crowded buildings obscured the view from the lower stories. There was nothing coming in from sea but a steam-tug, which did not harmonize with these pleasant reminiscences, though as Miss Prince raised the window a fine salt breeze entered, well warmed with the May sunshine. It had the flavor of tar and the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... graves around which his men are slumbering, and at last, worn with sorrow and vigil, Lee rolls himself in his blanket and, still booted and spurred, stretches his feet towards the little watch-fire, and pillows his head upon the saddle. Down the stream the horses are already beginning to tug at their lariats and struggle to their feet, that they may crop the dew-moistened bunch grass. Far out upon the chill night air the yelping challenge of the coyotes is heard, but the sentries give no sign. Despite grief and care, Nature asserts her sway and is fast lulling Lee ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King

... tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... a day when many members of the theatrical company, including Jack Jepson, who now enjoyed that distinction, were taken down to the seacoast, some distance from New York. They went in a tug specially hired ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... the knolls ahead, masses of Austrian Cavalry are seen waiting him, besetting every passage! Even these do not break him; but these, with infantry and cannon coming up to help them, do. Here, for some time, was the fiercest tug of all,—till a bullet having killed Fouquet's horse, and carried the General himself to the ground, the spasm ended. The Lichnowski Dragoons, a famed Austrian regiment, who had charged and again charged with nothing but repulse on repulse, now broke ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... a tug that would fasten over a doubletree, a wagon that could still squeak, or a flivver that had a bolt in it, went into the transportation business—hauling the seekers from Pierre or from McClure ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... a beautiful start, and again as before in the first dash the St. Ambrose pace tells, and they gain their boat's length before first winds fail; then they settle down for a long steady effort. Both crews are rowing comparatively steady reserving themselves for the tug of war up above. Thus they pass the Gut, and those two treacherous corners, the scene of countless bumps, into the wider water beyond, up under ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... Then comes the tug of war. The young wife becomes a mother, and while she is retired to her chamber, blundering Biddy rusts the elegant knives, or takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water,—the silver is washed in greasy soap-suds, and refreshed now and then with a thump, which cocks the nose of the teapot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... Sword v. Sword Mounted, Bayonet-fighting, Tug-of-War, Fencing, and other officers' and men's events had been, or ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... twelve; he knew it was the General's carriage by the horses' step. What was his delight when, shortly after hearing the jingle of the General's spurs as he crossed the esplanade, and the rattle of muskets as the sentries presented arms, he felt a gentle tug at the cord, the end of which he had kept wrapped around his wrist! Something heavy was made fast to the cord; two little jerks notified him to haul up. He had some difficulty in landing the object over a cornice ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Horner gave a hasty glance and then hurried past, enraged at the sight of these strong-winged adventurers of the sky doomed to so tame a monotony of days. But just as he got abreast of the farther extremity of the cage, he stopped, with a queer little tug at his heart-strings. He had caught sight of a great, white-headed eagle, sitting erect and still on a dead limb close to the bars, and gazing through them steadily, not at him, but straight into ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... ensues the tug of war. How make stems of all lengths stand in the most desirable position and yet all touch the water? Sometimes a shorter one must stand above a longer one, when it is impossible to bathe its feet in the refreshing liquid. Sink the longer then; cut it off. Each experiment will bring ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... on, 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 war-smoke, volumed high, Still peals that unremitted ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... life must have been! They tell me that about forty years ago he'd landed in that place, a Russian Pole, ignorant of the language, without any money or friends, a low-down beach-comber. And here he was, a millionaire. Every tug on the river has his big M on the funnel. He had fleets of steamers, mines, railways, banks; and he was even tendering for the contract of the new docks the city wanted. No wonder others came to make their fortunes. No gentility needed to make him succeed. And thinking of him, somehow ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... same time armed a steam-tug, and, loading her with soldiers, sent her to the little town to recapture it ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... clouds to the bay beneath. The sea-breeze was dying down with the day, and off Fort Point a fishing-boat was creeping into port before the last light breeze. A little beyond, a tug was sending up a twisted pillar of smoke as it towed a three-masted schooner to sea. His eyes wandered over toward the Marin County shore. The line where land and water met was already in darkness, and long shadows were creeping up the hills toward Mount Tamalpais, ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... like that of a man grown suddenly doubtful, timid, distrustful. His hand was actually on the latch when, to Thor's surprise, he wheeled away, returning to his "team" with head bent and stride slackened thoughtfully. By the time he had mounted the wagon, however, and begun to tug at Maud he was whistling the popular air of the moment with no more than a subdued ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... practical politicians were familiar had their bearing upon the outcome. In New York State, where occurred the worst tug of war, Governor Hill and his friends, while boasting their democracy, were widely believed to connive at the trading of Democratic votes for Harrison in return for Republican votes for Hill. At any rate, New York State ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... will be remembered, at Gibraltar. After a short stay there, they crossed over to Morocco in a cattle tug. Neither of them liked Tangiers, still, if the Consulate had been conferred upon Sir Richard, it would have given them great happiness. They were, however, doomed to disappointment. Lord Salisbury's short-lived administration of 1886 had been succeeded by a Liberal Government with Lord Rosebery ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... wily enemy would stop firing, and give a tug to the two ropes which bound his unfortunate captives, and they would be jerked a foot or two ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler

... no memory one could do many things. Memory clings ever to a man's coat-tails and drags him back to where he was before. There was a tug upon the coat-tails of John Appleman. He was homesick at times. The musky odors of the coast in blooming time often oppressed him. The fragrance of the tropic blossom had never become sweeter in his ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... mother. It's callers, I do believe,' cried Mina, giving her hair a tug before the mirror, and shaking out her skirts, while ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... greatest Tug; could he but make Th'encluding Sanedrims Resolves once shake; Nay, make the smallest Breach, or clashing Jar, In their great Councel, push but home so far, And the great Point's secur'd.——And, lo! among The Princely Heads of that ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.

... again. 'I am almost ready to sink, Ma'am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my nightcap (here the lady hastily snatched off her's), but I can't get it off, Ma'am (here Mr. Pickwick gave it a tremendous tug in proof of the statment). It is evident to me, Ma'am, now, that I have mistaken this bedroom for my own. I had not been here five minutes, Ma'am, when you ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... 4th I went to Edenton and spent the afternoon at Mr. B.'s, and made the acquaintance of his daughters. On the 6th, H. T. Wood, paymaster's clerk, and myself, went aboard a tug, and were conveyed to the United States steamer Shamrock, from whence we boarded the Trumpeter, where Dr. P. H. Barton and myself held a medical survey upon H. T. Wood, and sent him to the United States Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Va. I accompanied him. We left the Shamrock at 7 o'clock ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten

... 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

... to a strong tug, and we descended into subterranean passages, framed by the art of men, through which rolled and surged torrents ...
— HE • Andrew Lang

... couple of hundred yards away they looked into the trained guns of the Federal warship Cyane. Several boatloads of officers and marines were leaving her side. From the San Francisco waterfront a police tug bore down on ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... had accordingly tied up their brindled bulldogs, "Spit," "Snap" and "Tug"; had donned their white ties and collars of awful altitude, and were fully prepared to please and to be pleased. Although it was nominally a "stag" party, the triumvirate would as soon have cut off their tender mustaches as have failed to ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers

... with thee I must tug for Empire? For I lay claim to all this World of Beauty. [Takes La Nuche, looking ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... 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 ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... seek him out guided by the patter of the monkey galloping before him. The monkey was always there to receive and introduce Ford. The little animal seemed to have taken complete charge of its master, and whenever it wished for his presence on the verandah it would tug perseveringly at his jacket, till Almayer obediently came out into the sunshine, which he seemed ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... midst of festivities like these the twins would have gone on from bliss to bliss without consciousness of time or place, had not hunger suddenly descended upon them and sleep begun to tug at their eyelids, changing in a trice their joy into sorrow and their mirth into mourning. Not that they were troubled with any doubts, fears, or perplexities. True, they had wandered away from Eden Place, and had not the slightest ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... lacked. That Coleridge so often only shows the way, and so seldom guides our steps along it to the end, is no just ground of complaint. It would be as unreasonable to complain of a beacon-light that it is not a steam-tug, and forget in the incompleteness of its separate services the glory of their number. It is a more reasonable objection that the light itself is too often liable to obscuration,—that it stands erected ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... 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 ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... this was under discussion in the Upper House, Nelson, impressed with the idea that war must come, left his seat, and wrote to the Prime Minister the following line: "Whenever it is necessary, I am your Admiral." Yet he felt the tug at his heartstrings as he never had before. "War or Peace?" he writes to his old flag-captain, Berry. "Every person has a different opinion. I fear perhaps the former, as I hope so much the latter." ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... young, Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung; Received, but recked not of a wound, And locked his arms his foeman round. Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel Through bars of brass and triple steel! They tug, they strain! down, down they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below. The Chieftain's gripe his throat compressed, His knee was planted on his breast; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his brow his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... "he's takin' lumber down to New York. And he didn't see me. And we'll stay in this here graveyard till he's gone. He's waitin' for the steam tug to come. I guess he poled from Albany down when ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... Noonoon in the vicinity of 4 A.M.—a radiant hour in the summer dawn, but then in winter, the time when bed is most alluring, when the passengers' breath congeals on the window-panes, they complain that the foot-warmers have got cold, and give yet one more twist to their comforters and another tug at their 'possum or wallaby rugs. This train passed with its shaking thunder, drew into Noonoon for refreshments, then on and on with noisy energy, but still Miss ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... Tom, gesticulating, swears that he sees 'a billow break.' True: there they come; the great white horses, that 'champ and chafe, and toss in the spray.' That long-becalmed trawler to seaward fills, and heels over, and begins to tug and leap impatiently at the weight of her heavy trawl. Five minutes more, and the breeze will be down upon us. The young men whistle openly to woo it; the old father thinks such a superstition somewhat ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... end to end of the throng along the water-front. Its subdued murmur rose in pitch upon the second. Like a flock of agitated gulls, the boats in the harbour stirred nimbly from place to place; a belated newspaper tug tore by, headed for the upper bay, smoking fiercely, the water boiling from her bows. From the battleship came the tap of a drum. The excursion steamers and chartered ferryboats moved to points of vantage and took position, occasionally feeling ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... give you six more!" cries Annie. "I've got to go and make the puddings" (she said "puddens," but what matter?). Before she goes she pulls a handful of grass from the threshold and offers it to the calves. While they tug it this way and that to get it from her hand, she endeavours to plant a kiss on the moist black muzzle of the smallest, but he promptly and ungallantly backs and the grass falls to the ground. At the same moment the children discover me, and an awed silence succeeds to their ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... hesitate long before it will consent to the subdivision of a slave State simply that two slave States may be made out of it. The evil which has so nearly destroyed not only Western Virginia, but the whole country, will find that its tug-of-war is yet to come, when it has run the gauntlet of our Convention and our Legislature. We believe that when it reaches Congress, it will reach its hitherto and that it will never pass. It will avail very little for this convention to remain in debate on this subject for a month at ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... cabbage?" or some equivalent question. The keepers have already privately agreed which of the two each of these objects shall represent, and, according to the prisoner's choice, he is placed behind one or the other. When all are caught, the game ends with a "Tug of War," the two sides pulling against each other; and the child who lets go, and breaks the line, is pointed at and derided. The words of the rhyme sung while the row passes under the bridge are now reduced to ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... I've gone to leeward like a tub. In fact, I find there's only one way of going ahead with my Poll, and that is right before the wind! I used to yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... coolly, and walked off. But there was a tug of fear at her heart. She told Mabel, but it was typical of the change that Mabel only ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... to cover facts and screen designs of which the victim's first notice is, snap! when they pin him like a steel-trap. Still, Storri entertained no risks when he broke into confidences with Mr. Harley. It was Mr. Harley who listened and Storri who talked; besides, Storri, in any conflicting tug of interest, could be as loquacious as Mr. Harley, and as false. It was diamond cutting diamond and Greek meeting Greek. Only, since Storri was a Count, and Mr. Harley one upon whom a title went not without blinding effect, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... Jan's nose and the pup looked into the monk's eyes, but there was something he did not understand. It was all so different from what the other dogs had told him. He felt the rope tug his collar and knew that he must follow this stranger. He heard again a heart-rending howl from his mother, "Good-bye, Jan, good-bye!" Bruno's voice blended with hers, and then the voices of all the dogs Jan knew and loved mingled ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... proposal made than executed; two fishing lines were fitted—with their spears a hole was made in the easily yielding ice— the bear furnished bait. Scarcely was a line in than a tug was felt, and a small fish was hauled up. They did not know the name, but as its appearance was prepossessing, they had no doubt that it was fit for food. Another and another followed; they were delighted ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston

... always keep a woman from loud talk. We must remove the stigma of loudness and coarseness that now rests upon the race. The less a person knows, the bigger noise she generally makes. The big touring car never makes the noise that a motor cycle does, nor does a great steamer make the fuss that a tug boat does. The deep stream is silent while the little ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley

... the spirit and the function of the Put-Through Clan in a town, is to embody truth so baldly and with such a shameless plainness that no matter how hard they try, people cannot tug ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... ideas, and one of its old-fashioned plans was to give holidays at the end of June instead of the end of July, so that the girls had the longest, finest days at home, and came back to work at the end of August refreshed and strengthened, and prepared for a good long tug at lessons of all ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... being shuffled out at the bed's feet of history. To what infinite numbers an historian would multiply should he crumble into elves of this profession? To supply this smallness they are fain to join forces, so they are not singly but as the custom is in a croaking committee. They tug at the pen like slaves at the oar, a whole bank together; they write in the posture that the Swedes gave fire in, over one another's heads. It is said there is more of them go to a suit of clothes than to a Britannicus; in this ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... though his proud heart would yield, but there were tremendous influences on the other side. There was the love of his free and easy life which must be put in the scale. If he changed about he must endure the scoffs and reproaches of his former companions. Added to these was the awful tug of the habits and inclinations of his present life, and beyond all this was the personal temptation of the evil one whispering in his soul not to yield. If he did yield, said the tempter, he would soon fall away, and that would be worse than ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... a tug so imperative that Susan had no choice but to obey, turned his head quite away as he groped for the door to ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... we were transferred to a small steam tug, and, in twenty minutes, were put across the arm of the lake which separates Johnson's Island from the main land. We were marched, as soon as landed, to the adjutant's office, and after roll-call, and a preliminary scrutiny to ascertain if we had money or weapons ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... favourable, but we advanced slowly, the floating mass that we had to tug retarding us. Fritz had been some time regarding a large object in the water; he called me to steer a little towards it, that he might see what it was. I went to the rudder, and made the movement; immediately ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss

... with each other, and further acquaintance 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 ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... little bumboat schooners, transports are coming and going with regiments or provisions for the same. Here, too, are old acquaintances from the bay of New York,—the "Yankee," a lively tug,—the "Harriet Lane," coquettish and plucky,—the "Catiline," ready to reverse her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... the dance. The bang of the sliding door roused a hen to noisy protest, and it sought the open with a wild beating of wings. The hen had emerged from the manger of an unused stall, and in feeling under the corn-trough for eggs, Phil touched some alien object. She gave a tug that brought to light a corner of brown leather, found handles, and drew out a suit-case. She was about to thrust it back when "C. H." in small black letters arrested her eye. It was an odd place for the storing of luggage and her curiosity ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... the fancy steed; I do not care when I go by that no one turns his eyes to see The dashing manner of my gait which marks my noble breed; I am content to trudge the road And willingly to draw my load— Sometimes to know the spur and goad When I begin to lag; I'd rather feel the collar jerk And tug at me, the while I work, Than all the tasks of life to shirk As does the ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest

... it before I received the welcome tug at the other end. Then a voice shouted: "Pull ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... 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 Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... the captain of the tug, did not sleep on the boat that night, but went to a cock fight. The colored men decided to escape and go to Pennsylvania. (I was a small boy). They ran the tug across the bay to Elk Creek, and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... gives a tug at the bell cord that would have dislocated the neck of a horse. The cord comes away in his hand. He hurls it across ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... gettin' dark! See there's t' leeghts in t' houses in t' New Town! T' grass is crispin' wi' t' white frost under out feet. It'll be a hard tug round t' point, and then she'll ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... high tide came sweeping in, and lapped and sniffed and sighed around the canal-boat as if it were trying to tug it loose and carry the old craft and all the family out to sea. Little Bertel hoped the tide would fetch it, for it would be kind o' nice to get clear out away from everybody and everything—where there were no chips to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... 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. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... dozen others, who had been there before him, &c., &c., &c. And then Mr. Nogo ended with so vehement an attack on Sir Gregory, and the Government as connected with him, that the dogs began to whet their teeth and prepare for a tug at the great badger. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... answer in words, only she freed her hand from Eustace with a resolute little tug and ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... Sally was a vessel of renown. No blustering liner, no fussy tug, no squattering steamer, she; but a bluff-bowed, smartly painted, trim-built sailing barge, plying chiefly from the lower reaches of the Thames to ports west of Dover. She had no equal of her class, at any point of sailing, and certainly her Master, Mr. Joseph ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... their eyes, had pencils, and kept tally of his remarks as he danced about after each frantic tug at a glued-on shoe. One took down every wounding, malicious word. A second caught and preserved every defamatory word. While the third and busiest one secured every profane word that fell ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who wish to tug at and tousel each other, not ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... under the tarpon's despair, I have heard my reel sing with the rushes of the bass, yet I do not believe that a whale with my harpoon in his side, as he thrashes the sea, would give me the same exulting thrill that came with a tiny trout's first tug at my hook. Filled with so exciting a prospect, I did not look back as we swung down the hill from the farmhouse. I dared not, lest I should see my too solicitous mother beckoning me home to the protection of her eyes. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... least philosophical and least moralistic—as in the superbly imaginative figure of Richmond Roy—that he is at his greatest. There is, throughout his work, an unpleasing strain, like the vibration of a rope drawn out too tight,—a strain and a tug of intellectual intensity, that is not fulfilled by any corresponding intellectual wisdom. His descriptions of nature, in his poems, as well as in his prose works, have an original vigor and a pungent tang of their own; but the twisted violence of their ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... distance away from the rest by her jailers, where the questions are put to her, whether she will choose "a gold watch," or "a diamond necklace." As she decides she goes to the one side or the other. When, in like manner, all in the line have chosen, a tug-of-war ensues, and the game ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... the Honourable Adam B. Hunt leans out and nearly falls out, but is rescued by Division Superintendent Manning of the Northeastern Railroads, who has stepped in from Number Seven to give a little private tug of a persuasive nature to the Honourable Adam's coat-tails. A red Leviathan comes screaming down Main Street with a white trail of dust behind it, smothering the occupants of vehicles which have barely succeeded in getting out of the way, and makes a spectacular finish ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... in port we were held up for some time. A tug came out, bringing a lot of artificers who at once set to work tearing out the fittings of the ship that she might be converted into a transport. Here again I witnessed a contrast between the soldierly and the ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... He gave a savage tug at his pajamas, and the next instant there was a tearing sound and the cloth parted at the knee. Out leaped the mouse, to disappear ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... 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 ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... mast at the Needles began a new series of experiments which must have tried the endurance and determination of the young man to the utmost. A tug was chartered, and to the sixty-foot mast erected thereon was connected the wire and transmitting and receiving apparatus. From this little vessel Marconi sent and received wireless signals day after day, no matter what the state of the weather. With each trip experience ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the tug of war would come. And then indeed the little woman found herself in such a situation as made her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere. As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen most are Irishmen; ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... than on Stephen Birkenholt. This was partly in consideration of Stephen's youth, partly of his ready zeal and cheerfulness. His hands might be sore too, but he was rather proud of it than otherwise, and his hero worship of Kit Smallbones made him run on errands, tug at the bellows staff, or fetch whatever was called for with a bright alacrity that won the foremen's hearts, and it was noted that he who was really a gentleman, had none of the airs ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... by 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 ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... his elbows. Then the penniless man is up again; they close and struggle, the night-watchman's club falls across his enemy's head blow upon blow, while the sufferer grasps him desperately, with both hands, by the throat. They tug, they snuffle, they reel to and fro in the yielding crowd; the blows grow fainter, fainter; the grip is terrible; when suddenly there is a violent rupture of the crowd, it closes again, and then there are two against ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... you can see the elevation we stood on when we watched the terrible battle. The village is here on our left. One more tug, and we'll arrive, so brace ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson

... themselves for war. They were disciplined in such a manner that it was necessary to curb them constantly, lest they should rashly undertake to make conquests. Out of this character of the Greeks arose that old saying, "When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war." ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various

... the Christian name Nanni is the prettiest and finest a girl can well have. And so, kindly reader, if you ever ask a pretty child in Bamberg, "What is your name, my little angel?" the little thing will be sure to cast down her eyes in shy confusion and tug at her black silk apron, and whisper in friendly fashion with a slight blush upon her cheeks, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... long weeks we have been kept here in suspense—packing and then unpacking—one day we were to go, the next we were not to go, while the commanding general and the division commander were playing "tug of ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... "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 ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... tender, and an event of the next night intensified them. It was Hercule's custom, in every town that the Constellation visited, to issue a challenge. He pledged himself to present a "Purse of Gold"—it contained a ten-franc piece— to any eight men who vanquished him in a tug-of-war. The spectacle was always an immense success—the eight yokels straining, and tumbling over one another, while Hercule, wearing a masterful smile, kept his ten francs intact. A tug-of-war had been arranged for the night following, and by ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... the windy promenade was dangerous, and I shut myself up and pined like the "Prisoner of Chillon." I have lots of spunk and pride, if I am bashful; and so I never let on to those at home—when I sent them a letter once in two months by the little tug that brought my oil and provisions—that I was homesick. I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared with it; that ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... already begun to make their appearance. While crossing the bridge, February 22, I was surprised to notice two of them sitting upon a bird-box over the draw, which just then stood open for the passage of a tug-boat. The toll-gatherer told me they had come "from some place" eight or ten days before. His attention had been called to them by his cat, who was trying to get up to the box to bid them welcome. He believed that she discovered ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... as it were from some high vantage-ground over the heads of the clamorous multitude. "Nay, but me, me, me," echoes another; and our former selves fight within us and wrangle for our possession. Have we not here what is commonly called an internal tumult, when dead pleasures and pains tug within us hither and thither? Then may the battle be decided by what people are pleased to call our own experience. Our own indeed! What is our own save by mere courtesy of speech? A matter of fashion. Sanction sanctifieth and fashion ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... scenes in the world—the gateway to the Western Hemisphere. They could see the great steamships of all the nations threading their way through the Narrows and passing in procession up the glorious expanse of New York Bay, to which the incessant local traffic of tug-boats, river steamers and huge steam-ferries lent an ever-shifting animation. In the foreground lay Robbins Reef Lighthouse, in the middle distance the Statue of Liberty, in the background the giant ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... Jamaica as a community, I would call it a handshaking people. I have often laughed heartily upon seeing two cronies meeting in the streets of Kingston after a temporary separation; when about pistol—shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the right—hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,—one, a smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... opened in earnest. Smoke was poured out in volleys from shot-holes; the besieging forces pushed forward in masses, regardless of the fire; the moat was filled with the crowd; and, amid much confusion and scrambling, scaling-ladders were raised against the walls. Then was the grand tug of war. The leaders of the forlorn hope who first ascended were opposed with great gallantry by the defenders; and this was, perhaps, the most interesting part of the exhibition. The chief of the assailants did wonders; he was seen now here, now there, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... injury, and gave rise to the new one of revenge. I could no longer attend to my occupations; all my plans and devices were forgotten; I seemed about to begin life anew, and that under no good auspices. The tug of war, I thought, was now to begin. He would come triumphantly to the district to which my parent had fled broken-hearted; he would find the ill-fated offspring, bequeathed with such vain confidence to his royal father, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley



Words linked to "Tug" :   pulling, carry, pull in, strive, tugger, labour, transport, draw, force, move, struggle, draw in, helm, boat, bear on, reach, lug, pull, displace, contend, tower, strain, fight, tow, attract



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