▪ I. dug, n.1
(dʌg)
Also 6–7 dugge.
[Not known before 16th c.: origin obscure. Perh. radically connected with Sw. dægga, Da. dægge to suckle (a child).]
The pap or udder of female mammalia; also the teat or nipple; usually in reference to suckling. As applied to a woman's breast, now contemptuous.
| 1530 Palsgr. 280/1 Tete, pappe, or dugge, a womans brest. 1583 Stanyhurst æneis i. (Arb.) 34 Her dug with platted gould rybband girded about her. 1592 Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 875 Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 519 The number of young Pigs..I finde to be so many as the Sow hath dugs for. a 1628 Preston New Covt. (1630) 477 The promises are full of comfort as a dugge is full of milke. 1713 Derham Phys. Theol. iv. xv. 256 With Duggs and Nipples placed in the most convenient part of the Body of each Animal. 1878 H. M. Stanley Dark Cont. II. iii. 75 The enormous dugs which hung down from the bosoms of the women. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1670 R. Lassels Voy. Italy I. 131 Lye hidden a while, at the dug of the booke. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. (1776) VII. 253 Nature has supplied this animal [spider] with..five dugs or teats for spinning it into thread. 1866 B. Taylor Poems, Mondamin, The savage dugs of fable. |
† c. dug-tree, an old name of the Papaw-tree (Carica Papaya), apparently from the milky juice exuded by all parts of the tree when wounded.
| 1640 Parkinson Theatr. Bot. xvii. cxxix. 1649 Manoera mas & femina. The male and female Dugge tree. |
▪ II. † dug, n.2 Obs. Angling.
A kind of red worm used as a bait. More fully called dug-worm.
| 1607 Topsell Serpents (1658) 811 Some are red, (which we Englishmen call Dugs). 1653 Walton Angler iv. 93 Others [breed] amongst or of plants, as the dug worm. 1674 N. Cox Gentl. Recreat. iv. (1677) 60 Baits for the Angler; the Earth-worm, the Dug-worm, the Maggot or Gentle. |
▪ III. dug, ppl. a.
(dʌg)
[pa. pple. of dig v.]
1. Obtained by digging, excavated, thrust into something, etc.: see the verb.
| 1715 Leoni Palladio's Archit. (1742) I. 4 All dug Stones are better..than gather'd ones. 1885 Tennyson Balin & Balan Wks. (1894) 374/2 Now with slack rein..Now with dug spur..he rode. 1892 A. E. Lee Hist. Columbus (Ohio) I. 29 Several excavations or ‘dugholes’, from which material..seems to have been taken. |
2. dug-in, entrenched; firmly established in a position; (see also quot. 1948). Cf. dig v. 11.
| 1919 W. H. Downing Digger Dial. 21 Dug in, in a safe or comfortable position. 1944 Times 6 July 4/6 From a ridge behind the airfield dug-in German tanks have a clear field of fire. 1948 Partridge Dict. Forces' Slang 62 Dug-in job, a base job; such a job within a unit..as carried certain privileges. |