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Tug   Listen
verb
Tug  v. i.  
1.
To pull with great effort; to strain in labor; as, to tug at the oar; to tug against the stream. "He tugged, he shook, till down they came."
2.
To labor; to strive; to struggle. "England now is left To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth The unowed interest of proud-swelling state."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tug" Quotes from Famous Books



... the bit as usual, only some of his tongue came out and stayed out. "Wot's up w' y'?" and Dad tried to poke it in with his finger, but it came out further, and some chewed grass dropped into his hand. Dad started to lead him then, or rather to PULL him, and at the first tug he have the reins Ned woke with a snort and broke away. And when the other horses saw him looking at Dad with his tail cocked, and his head up, and the bridle-reins hanging, they went for their lives through the trees, and ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... the Burtons, it 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 ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... tug, sent by the Commandant, steamed alongside at two o'clock, and the company was marched on board without delay. The boys were eager to enter on this, their first real detail, and, in the rush to gain the deck of the tug, young Potter slipped from the rail and fell with a mighty splash ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... of a day in May during the recent year the converted tug Uncas left Key West to join the blockading squadron off the northern ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... while I'm tryin' to steady her on one side as she goes rollin' waddly through the main office that I gets a little hint of what's comin' to me. Maybe you've seen a tug-boat bobbin' alongside a big liner in a heavy sea. I expect we must have looked something like that. Even so, that flossy bunch of lady typists showed poor taste in cuttin' loose with the smothered snickers ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... 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 said, "Drat these losers of ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... sad, sad sounding shore, France, save my duty, I shall all forget; Amongst the true and tried, I'll tug my oar, And rest proscribed to brand the ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... tug at his body, he was whirled completely around, and then there was a steady pull. He was being catapulted down the ray to the mysterious point of brilliance in the Great Red Spot. The girl was right beside him. The ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner

... drawing his stunner. The raft was a dark blob on the surface of the water some feet farther on. And now it was bobbing up and down violently. That was not the result of any normal tug of current. He heard an indignant squeal and relaxed with a little laugh. He need not have worried about the wolverines; that bait had drawn them all right. Both of them were now engaged in eating, though they had to conduct ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... and whistled all they knew for a wind; and I set there and watched the sails playin' Isick and Josh, Isick and Josh, till, honest, I could feel the soul creakin' inside me with tiredness. I expect the sun kind o' scrambled my brains, same as a dish of eggs; for bumbye a tug come along, goin' to the city, and I wasted good money by gettin' a tow and pullin' into port two days ahead of schedule time. Now see what I got for it! I went to the office, and there was a letter from a lawyer sayin' ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... of man's sore need at the down-end, the man-end, of the strings. And it's the sore tug of grief over the way things are going on down here with men, at the other end, the up-end, the heart-end, of the strings. It's the tense pull-up of a love that grows stronger with the growth ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon

... noon a tug-boat belonging to the navy was seen steaming up the James, regardless of torpedoes and obstructions. A mile below the city, where the water becomes shoal, President Lincoln, accompanied by Admiral Porter, Captain Adams of the navy, Captain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... 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

... daughter. She felt that she would rather die than have him know it. Perhaps, after all, she was in the wrong. She would try to dismiss it and do her best to enter into the spirit of the merry-making. An impatient tug at her hand caused her ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... A last tug, and the sweater was off. Red hair flashed into view, tousled and disordered: and, as she saw it, Sally uttered an involuntary gasp of astonishment which caused many eyes to turn towards her. And the red-headed young man, who had been stooping to pick up his gloves, straightened himself with ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... generally about four acres in extent; there will thus be four groups of bamboos, each of which can be agitated by pulling on a single rattan. From each such group a rattan passes to the hut, and some person, generally a woman or child, is told off to tug at these rattans in turn at short intervals. Upon the rattans between the bamboos are hung various articles calculated to make a noise or to flap to and fro when the system is set in motion. Sometimes the rattan by which the system of poles is set in movement is tied to the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... 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

... silence; and just as Alfred was going to try and break it, Cornet Bosanquet, aged 18, height 5 feet 4 inches, strutted up with clanking heel, and, glancing haughtily up at him, carried Julia off, like a steam-tug towing away some fair schooner. To these little thorns society treats all anxious lovers, but the incident was new to Alfred, and discomposed him; and, besides, he had nosed a rival in Sampson's prescription. So now ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... last pansies, looked at them, and as idly flung them away, goes on her listless way through the gardens. A whole long month, and not one word from him! Are his social duties now so numerous that he has forgotten he has a ward? "Well," emphatically, and with a vicious little tug at her big white hat, "some people have strange views ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... latter was either quite dry or in raging flood. Close under the hill huddled two buildings, half logs, half mud. There the horses were changed by strange men with steel glints in their eyes, like those you see under the brows of a north-country tug-boat captain. Passengers could there eat flap-jacks architecturally warranted to hold together against the most vigorous attack of the gastric juices, and drink green tea that tasted of tannin and really demanded for its proper accommodation porcelain-lined insides. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... would have it, Miss Ayr and her mother and Mrs. Blenkin were on the inside, and the two Misses Pound were on the outside—a fact which did not seem to diminish the natural anxiety of the ladies on either side of the door for their personal safety. At all events, the tug of war went on. Mr. Blagg showed extreme terror, and being plainly reduced by the same to a state of utter intellectual confusion and imbecility, made an insane attempt to scale the heights of a large what-not in the corner of the room, which, of course, promptly came over with him, hurling ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... came up to the stag; but now the most difficult part of the task commenced; now "the tug of war" began, for I had no sooner laid my hand upon the poor animal than the whole pack began their attack upon him with redoubled vigour. One of the gentlemen threw me his whip, which I applied to the backs of the dogs with one hand, while I held the stag with the other. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... in the crowd. The Elder had come down and wuz shakin' hands right and left with them that crowded up to him. The little woman pressed towards him and I wuz drawed along in her wake by the crowd, some as a stately ship is swep' on by a small tug and the flowin' waves. And anon, after shakin' hands with her, he took my hand in hisen. A emotion swep' through me, a sort of electric current that connects New Jerusalem to Jonesville and Zoar. He bent his full sweet penetratin' look ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... great French plays. It 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. And in modern French drama, for all its "logic," ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... domestic is the detective's aversion," he said as the car whirred into the avenue. "The lady of the lodge will be a sufficiently tough proposition if we try to drag information out of her, but the real tug of war will come when we tackle ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... his household gods. Mr. Bolum's pleasure was evident. Once launched into an account of the comfort of springs as compared to a straw-tick on ropes, he would have monopolized our attention to the end of the journey, but the sagacious Henry blocked him rudely by a tug at the reins which almost threw the lemon-colored ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd

... the landing-stage one long cold hour. The huge square structure, ordinarily steady and solid as the mainland itself, was pitching and rolling not much less "lively" than a Dutch galliot in a sea-way; and the tug that was to take us on board parted three hawsers before she could make fast alongside. It was hard to keep one's footing on the shaking, slippery bridge, but in ten minutes all staggered or tumbled, as choice or chance directed, on to the ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... know. There was no sound but the rush of the river; and she wished her little boat would go near the bank. Perhaps it would catch on that bit of rock sticking out. No, the river gave it a wicked tug and swept it round the point with a triumphant gurgle. Could Rosa catch an overhanging tree? She tried to, but the effort nearly jerked her into the water, and left nothing but a few crumpled leaves in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... whole is to-day conducted on a different plane. The struggle of the classes is no longer a vague, undefined, and embittered battle. It is no longer merely a contest between the violent of both classes. It is now a deliberate, and largely legal, tug-of-war between two great social categories over the ends of a social revolution that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable. The representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and labor now faces capital with a program, clear, comprehensive, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... catch 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 ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley

... tough is the skin, that once the point of the harpoon is embedded in it, nothing but a strong and direct tug will release it. Some blacks substitute for the barbless point four pieces of thin fencing wire—each about 4 inches long, bound tightly together at one end, the loose ends being sharpened and slightly diverged. This is fastened to the line ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... at the path leading up to the railroad grade, and spurred up the hill. Ford gave a final tug at his saddle cinches, put up a leg and began to pick his way down the thronged ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... as its only chance of escape. In less disadvantageous circumstances the weasel would have made short work of his victim; but as he only had the bird by the tail, the prospects of the combatants were equalized. It was the tug-of-war being played with a life as the stakes. "If I do not reach the water," was the argument that went on in the heaving little breast of the one, "I am a dead bird." "If this water-hen," reasoned the other, "reaches the burn, my supper vanishes with her." ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... But what I says is so, an' you know it as well's I do. Now, it's goin' on three months I'm down in Rattlesnake Valley, where the Ol' Man's stringin' his chips on makin' a big play. He's goin' to make a town down in that sand-pile or bust a tug; I ain't sayin' which right now. Anyway, he's already got a school down there, an' they make the kids go. I figgered it out, seein' as them little freckle-nosed sons o' guns could learn readin' an' writin' an' such-like, by gravy, I ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory

... was a noble fittie-lan', As e'er in tug or tow was drawn: Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun, In guid March-weather, Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han' For ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries!"—ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!—ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... contempt did not help his wind or stimulate the flight of his heavy legs, and he saw now that he would lessen the narrowing margin between himself and his pursuer if he swerved to the right to clear the sheds. He suddenly slackened his pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his small skull. He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his pursuer headlong. ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... laughed two or three more women, closing round as the girl gave a tug which nearly upset Tim and broke half-a-dozen teeth out ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... regard to this deputation of giants which the giant Republic sends down to the waterside to welcome us, behold, we have crept up abreast of the Cunard wharf, and there stands a little crowd of human welcomers, waving handkerchiefs and American flags. An energetic tug-boat butts her head gallantly into the flank of the huge liner, in order to help her round. She glides up to her berth, the gangway is run out, and at last ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... tyrant, now, was thought happy while he lived; he was feared and respected by all: he had his gold and his silver; his fine clothes and his horses and his banquets; his smart pages and his handsome ladies,—and had to leave them all. No wonder if he was vexed, and felt the tug of parting. For I know not how it is, but these things are like birdlime: a man's soul sticks to them, and will not easily come away; they have grown to be a part of him. Nay, 'tis as if men were bound in some chain that nothing can break; and when by sheer force they ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... you had made a selection, you began to try to get Russell into all these things that were too tight or too loose for him. The socks were the worst. The right-hand one had to be put on very carefully, by quarter inches at a time; the least tug on the sock would give Russell an excruciating pain in his wounded knee; and Russell was all for violence and haste; he was so afraid of ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... mingling and quarrelling deep down in her heart. It was certainly not love, not even the beginning of that; but it was the kind of dangerous interest children feel in things mysterious, out of reach, yet within reach, if only they dared! And the tug of music was there, and the tug of those words of the baroness about salvation—the thought of achieving the impossible, reserved only for the woman of supreme charm, for the true victress. But all these thoughts and feelings were as yet ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Beowulf, who, after the purging of Heorot, had occupied a separate bower, like the king. Beowulf arrives, and hopes all is well. Hrogar spake:—"Ask not of welfare; sorrow is renewed for the Danish folk! My trusty friend schere is dead; my comrade tried in battle when the tug was for life, when the fight was foot to foot and helmets kissed:—oh! schere was what a thane should be! The cruel hag has wreaked on him her vengeance. The country folk said there were two of them, one the semblance of a woman, the other the spectre of a man. Their haunt is ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... 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 ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... didn't get so much as a nibble, and, at last—whether 'twas the heat of the sun, or what 'twas, I can't tell ye—I dropped clean off to sleep. How long I slept I can't say, but I was woke up by the tug-tugging of the line, which I'd made fast with two or three turns round my finger. I started to haul in, and had got my fish very nigh out of water, when he broke away, and I lost him. I was just baiting my hook afresh, when ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... In the realm of sport a later achievement of the Battalion deserves record. On July 27 at the XI Corps horse-show our team won the open tug-of-war.] ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... him onnerd Sir bein Overdogd at this ere present i can let you have A rale good teryer at A barrging which wold giv sattefacshun onnered Sir it wor 12 munth ago i Sold to Bounser esqre a red smooth air terier Dog anserin 2 nam of Tug as wor rite down goodun and No mistake onnerd Sir the purpurt Of this ere is too say as ow i have a Hone brother to Tug black tann and ful ears and If you wold like him i shold bee prowd too wate on you ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... 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 for ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... a joke at the expense of some high military or civil dignitary. He was intensely amused by a story told by Secretary Stanton, of a trip made by him and General Foster up the Broad river in North Carolina, in a tug-boat, when, reaching our outposts on the river bank, a Federal picket yelled out, "Who have you got on board that tug?" The severe and dignified answer was, "The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster." Instantly the picket roared back: "We've got Major-Generals ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... breaking on July 10, 1916, a submarine came alongside a tug in Hampton Roads and asked for a pilot. The pilot went aboard and found himself on the subsea freighter Deutschland, first merchant submarine to be built and the first to make a voyage. She came from Bremerhaven, a distance of 4,000 miles, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... we hould it between us, any rogue Shall run clean off before it knocks him down, While at each end we tug ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker

... to designate 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

... 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

... the fog,' I was infor-rmed. She shud have been back at her wharf at four o'clock. 'Twas now turned six and the bar was rough and blanketed in mist. The captain of the harbor tug had stated, with wise shakes of the head, that the Gladys cud do no more than lay outside the night and wait for sunshine and a smooth crossing. I shoved thim away from me again ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... visitors any longer?" the soft, tantalising voice went on. The low cadence of it seemed to tug ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... woven the evening before. While standing upon one mat, which supported his weight and prevented him sinking into the mud, he tossed a second one ahead, stepped upon it, drew the first mat after him, and repeated the process. It was slow work, for the mud clung to the mats, necessitating a heavy tug to free them, but it was sure—so long as a man's strength remained. Payne followed tediously in Higgins' trail and presently by virtue of greater length of leg and arm, had caught up with him. They reached the first island at the same time ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... their clamour at the horses and to exercise their strength upon the wheels. The driver alone urged the animals with his familiar voice; David himself heaved a powerful shoulder at the rear of the carriage, and with one harmonious tug the great vehicle rolled up on solid ground. The ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... the river was tinged with the pale blue of the sky. Big ships lay in the river as if they had never moved and never could move; a steamer in process of painting, with her sides lifted above the water, gleamed in irregular patches of brilliant scarlet. A lively tug passed down-stream, proud of her early rising; and, smaller even than the tug, a smack, running close-hauled, bowed to the puffs of the light breeze. Farther away the lofty chimneys sent their scarves ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... that reflects the vast enterprises of this continental country. The same story comes out in the ocean vessels which serve the trade of the Great Lakes, and in the acres of coal barges in a single fleet which are towed down the Ohio and Mississippi by one mammoth steel tug. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... of a great people nothing? Is this placing of twenty millions on the clear ground of unselfish duty, as life's motive, nothing? Is there one of us, to-day, who is not prouder of his nation and its character, in the midst of its desperate tug for life, than he ever was in the day of its envied prosperity? And when he considers how the nation has answered to its hard necessity, how it has borne itself in its sore trial, is he not clear of all ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and I at once confessed my sorrow for my past conduct, and my determination to drink no more; and, to conclude, my wife slowly recovered, and, I may add, I recovered also; but I was very far down the hill, and consequently found it a long and hard tug to get up again; but Mrs. Mason encouraged me, Mrs. Wright helped me, the doctor cheered me, Mr. Armstrong praised me, our kind minister instructed me, my wife assisted me, and, as a crowning point of all, the blessing of God rested on me. I worked hard, I prayed in my family, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... 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 be ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... hesitates—then continues more and more pleadingly.] You don't know how nice it's on barge, Anna. Tug come and ve gat towed out on voyage—yust water all round, and sun, and fresh air, and good grub for make you strong, healthy gel. You see many tangs you don't see before. You gat moonlight at night, maybe; ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill

... first his glance showed a watchful attention, and appeared to follow an object, and when first his hand made a grab at something. "Hey, hey, just look! He wants his share of things already!" he cried delightedly. It was Pelle's fair moustache the child was after—and didn't he give it a tug! ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... began to bob fiercely up and down. There was a strong tug on her line, and the reel began to revolve at a high rate of speed, as Mr. Fish, evidently aware that in snapping what appeared to be a nice, fat fly, he had gotten decidedly the worst of it, made a ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond

... 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 was ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... as I am aware, do not winter in Florida—had 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 them within three minutes of their arrival. It seemed ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... o'clock A.M. the navy made the attack, and kept it up for more than five hours in the most gallant manner. From a tug out in the stream I witnessed the whole engagement. Many times it seemed to me the gunboats were within pistol-shot of the enemy's batteries. It soon became evident that the guns of the enemy were too elevated and their fortifications ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... the period of "cabestans"—unwieldly machines propelled by means of anchors and windlasses. Now these primitive methods of transport have disappeared. The grain is either despatched by rail or put into gigantic barges, which are towed up the river by powerful tug-steamers to some point connected with ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... health. The voyage had been a good one, and the ten days' rest on shipboard had strengthened him amazingly he said. As we were told that a crowd had assembled in East Boston, we took him in our little tug and landed him safely at Long Wharf in Boston, where carriages were in waiting. Rooms had been taken for him at the Parker House, and in half an hour after he had reached the hotel he was sitting down to dinner with half a dozen friends, quite prepared, he said, to give the first reading in ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... to the edge of the wharf. There was a small tug there, the crew of which were just making her fast ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... of the under-foremen came in. "Oh, Mr. Bannon," he said, "I've been looking for you. There's a tug in the river with a big, steel cable aboard that they said was for us. I told 'em I thought it was ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin

... boy disappeared in the shadow of the door and came back at once with the measure. The grey gelding, in the meantime, had smelled the sweetness of hay and was growing restive but a sharp word from the rider jerked him up like a tug on his bit. He tossed his head and waited, his ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... back of Sandy Hook run past as though wound on rollers; the pilot goes over the side with a bag of farewell letters; the white yacht which has followed down the bay blows a parting blast, dips her ensign, and swings in a wide circle toward New York; the pursuing tug comes up and puts a tardy passenger aboard. Then, suddenly, like a sleep-walking dragon that wakes up, the liner shakes herself; her propellers lash the sea to suds; a wedge-shaped wake spreads out behind her, and the voyage is on ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street

... not understand and she stood there, just beyond the threshold, uncertainly. But if she did not understand why Mrs. Schuneman's daughters did not stay in the room with the red tug, she realized that Mrs. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett

... toil and tug Where sleety drifts be shook? What though i' the churchyard graves be dug; And sweethearts be forsook? A hearth, and a careful cook, And cares may go or come! For the kettle sings on the blackened hook, And hey! for the sweets ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

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

... American, here or elsewhere, the paths to fortune are innumerable and all open; there is invitation in the air and success in all his wide horizon. He is embarrassed which to choose, and is not unlikely to waste years in dallying with his chances, before giving himself to the serious tug and strain of a single object. He has no traditions to bind him or guide him, and his impulse is to break away from the occupation his father has followed, and make ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... the size of a walnut, covered with a glutinous substance, dried hard in the sun. I could not be so cruel as to break it in pieces, to gratify my curiosity; but I suppose it must have contained some treasure that was dear to them—probably their eggs. They would labor and tug, with their long arms, to roll it up an ascent; and if it rolled back again, they would patiently return, and roll it up, showing an example of ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb

... at resistance were useless. His uncle either insulted him with the harshest kind of words or coaxed him with promises of safety. He never knew certainly whether he threw himself into the water or whether a tug from the doctor jerked him from the boat. The first surprise having passed, he had the impression of remembering some long forgotten thing. He was swimming instinctively, divining what he ought to do before his master told him. Within him was awakening ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... it followed their hand, being, in fact, nothing more than a plant or bough recently cut, and stuck in the ground for the occasion. The Cicerone acknowledged the roguery, and said they practised it with almost every traveller, to get money. You will, of course, tug well at the laurel which shall be shown you, to see if this ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... at the wire. He gave it a little tug. The chair did not move. Billie gave an answering jerk, with similar lack of results. Then they glanced swiftly at one another, and each stepped back enough to permit lifting ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... away: "Of course I'd say 'my' to any child; it didn't mean anything! But suppose the orderly had heard me?" Even while he thus denied the Holy Spirit within him, he was feeling again that hot, ridiculous tug on his ear. "I was the only one who could manage him," he thought.... "Of course what I said ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... "letting 'em slide." The effect on the screen is wonderfully like what a long-range photograph of such an actual event would show. All that was needed to produce the scene was a tank of water with a miniature barge pushed along by a tiny tug-boat, the latter steaming up very realistically. When the toy barge and tug-boat were right in the middle of the "stage," three or four toy freight cars were allowed to slide off into the water. Above the tank, as a background, was hung some white or light ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... knees beside the triple knot that held the line fast to its spike. This time he did not hesitate, but began to tug at the rope end with fierce eagerness. He loosened one knot. The next was harder to unfasten. Blake had tied it with utmost secureness. At last it yielded to the tugging of his gloved fingers. He started to loosen the third knot. Suddenly the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... three or four pats, and then began to unbuckle headstall, and take off bridle and bit before unbuckling the girths, rising and taking hold of the saddle, giving it a sharp snatch to drag it free. But he had to put his heavily-booted foot against the horse's back, and tug several times before he could get the girths from beneath ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... close, however, without an exhibition of the peculiar aptitude of the Buss for disastrous action! On the 8th that inimitable vessel—styled by Teddy Maroon a "tub," and by the other men, variously, a "bumboat," a "puncheon," and a "brute" began to tug with tremendous ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... lightly, to save the animals for the future; and, finally, Sheikh Said and the Beluch escort; while the goats, sick women, and stragglers, brought up the rear. From first to last, some of the sick Hottentots rode the hospital donkeys, allowing the negroes to tug their animals; for the smallest ailment threw them broadcast on their backs. In a little while we cleared from the rich gardens, mango clumps, and cocoa-but trees, which characterise the fertile coast-line. After traversing fields of grass well ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... the price is settled: that is all. The real tug of war is still to come. What about ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... 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 to murder ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... 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 civilian attitude. The civilians, with their easily ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... the imagination, a connotation of multiple images which no jugglery of literary art can transfer into any foreign speech. Its charm, like that of all folk-songs and of all romance, lies in its mysterious tug ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... afternoon of the 19th. A small detached body of cavalry were ahead of him, and, acting on their own account, had begun to cut down trees across the stream. Anticipating this, the admiral had sent Lieutenant Murphy ahead in a tug and he had come up in time to stop the felling of the first; but the horsemen galloped across country faster than the tug could force her way through the channel and at last got down a large tree, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan

... this with the hand he had at liberty, but at length he accomplished it to his satisfaction, and then he allowed the coils of the rope to fall into the pit. He next essayed to test the strength of the support, by pulling at it. To his disappointment, his first vigorous tug snapped the withe to which the rope was attached. He tied the rope to a stronger growth, but with no better result: the growths seemed brittle, and incapable of bearing a great strain when tested separately. It was the twisted network of the withes ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... friends had come down to see him off, and having his orders contradicted so flatly was too much for him. However, the delay was sufficient. I took a race and a good leap; the ropes were cast off; the steam-tug gave a puff, and we started. Suddenly the captain was up to me: 'Where did you come from, you scamp, and ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... supplied the words to the men's bass accompaniment; the Captain and his wife linked hands. The candle came to light them to bed; the chopper came to chop off a head; and at the end a grand tug-of-war terminated with two squealing heaps of humanity in miniature subsiding on top of the Young ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... its twigs with breathing leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil continually, and makes the roots clench the ground with their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm, and at last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean arms in triumph, in defiance of the gale. Were it not for this energetic essence that crouches in the acorn and stretches its limbs every year, there would be no oak; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... Anchises—" But before he had got so far, the idea had been quite too much for Dermot, who cried out, "Pick-a-back! With his boots sticking out on both sides! Thank you, Dora. Oh! my uncle, pick-a-back!" and went off in an increasing, uncontrollable roar of laughter, while Harold, with a great tug to his moustache, observed apologetically to Lord Erymanth, "It was the only way I could do it," which speech had the effect of so prolonging poor Dermot's mirth, that all the good effect of the feeling he had previously displayed for his uncle was lost, and Lord Erymanth observed, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... will get a good six months' wear out of that ship in this one gale; loosening her knees, and jerking her spars like so many whip-handles; and all for love of the new fashion of rigging an English two-decker like an Algerian xebec! Well, let him tug his way up to windward, Bond-street fashion, if he likes the fun. What has become of the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a tug; but it might be done," Dr. McAlister said thoughtfully. "Besides, I'm not at all sure that Hu will care to go. If you are more anxious for college than he, you ought to have ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray

... 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 ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... tug with both her small doeskin-covered hands at Roderick's arm. He was still standing by the gate irresolute, inclination drawing him to the Abbey House, duty calling him home to Briarwood, five miles off, where his widowed mother was ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon

... told you what's the law, He that is taken there, unless a Magistrate, And have command in that place, presently If there be nothing found apparent near him Worthy his torture, or his present death, Must either pay his fine for his presumption, (Which is six hundred Duckets) or for six years Tug at an Oar i'th' Gallies: will ye walk Sir, For we presume you cannot ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... chute, with the strong tug of the canvas wagon-covers behind, there was nothing for the sheep to do but to take the plunge, and as his brawny herders tumbled them head over heels into the deep current Swope and his helpers ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge



Words linked to "Tug" :   boat, jerk, tower, struggle, bear on, draw in, force, push, helm, lug, strain, displace, tote, pulling, tugger, move, pull, draw, fight, labor, attract, pull in, towboat, labour



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