bug

Less common meanings

9. 9
   hidden microphonenouncountable

   A concealed electronic device used to secretly listen to or intercept conversations.

   Investigators swept the room and discovered a bug behind the painting.

   The journalist suspected a bug had been planted in her car.

   Similarwiretap

10. 10
    nouncolloquialcountable

    A keen enthusiast or dedicated hobbyist.

    Every car bug in town showed up to admire the vintage models.

    A lifelong camera bug, she still develops her own film in a closet darkroom.

    Similarenthusiast, buff, fan, fanatic, nut

    Note

    Where the enthusiasm is the passion itself, this sense names the person who has it. Two patterns appear. Fredric Brown's Nightmare in Yellow (1961) has a mother who "had been a bug on astrology," with on marking the passion. The same year the Kiplinger magazine Changing Times writes of "real camera bugs," with the passion placed in front as a compound. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Fredric Brown's Nightmare in Yellow was first published in 1961. archives.iu.edu
    • The story's narrator describes the protagonist's mother as having been a bug on astrology. s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com
    • In 1961 its title was Changing Times, subtitled The Kiplinger Magazine. It became Kiplinger's Personal Finance in 1991. kiplinger.com
    • The magazine used the phrase real camera bugs in 1961. en.wiktionary.org
11. 11
    bulge (eyes)verbintransitive

    Of the eyes, to bulge or protrude, especially in surprise or strain.

    His eyes bugged when the final score flashed on the screen.

    Her eyes bug out whenever a spider runs across the floor.

    UsageOften with out: his eyes bugged out.

    Similarbulge, pop, protrude, goggle

    Note

    It is intransitive and often paired with open: Lois H. Johnson, writing in 1979 about her first "rap" years before, says "My eyes bugged open" at the sight of twenty-five women in the room. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Lois H. Johnson wrote the cited recollection in 1979. en.wiktionary.org
    • Johnson wrote My eyes bugged open and estimated that 25 women were in the room. en.wiktionary.org
12. 12
    bed pestnoundatedUK

    A bedbug; a small wingless insect that infests beds and bedding and feeds on human blood.

    Bugs are generated from the moisture of living animals, as it dries up outside their bodies. Lice are generated out of the flesh of animals.

    1910, Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle: Historia animalium

    Note

    The word's insect story centers on the bedbug. Bug first named this insect in its present form around 1620. It took over an earlier bugge, "beetle," which may go back to Middle English bugge, "hobgoblin." Henry Sampson's A History of Advertising (1874) records that the lodging-house pest came to be called a "Norfolk Howard," after a man surnamed Bug advertised that he was changing his name. In current British English, say bedbug. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Its English history reaches back to Middle English bugge, meaning a hobgoblin or scarecrow, before the insect sense. en.wiktionary.org
    • Bug is first attested in its present form around 1620 for a bedbug, deriving from earlier bugge meaning beetle and Middle English bugge meaning hobgoblin. en.wiktionary.org
    • Henry Sampson wrote A History of Advertising, first published in 1874. gutenberg.org
    • Sampson records that Norfolk Howard became a name for bedbugs following an advertisement announcing a man's change of surname from Bug. gutenberg.org
13. 13
    act strangelyverbcolloquialintransitive

    To behave suspiciously or irrationally, especially in a way that bothers other people.

    My roommate can bug pretty hard when he's stressed, accusing us of moving his stuff and listening at his door.

    After three nights without sleep he was really bugging, checking the locks again and again and jumping at every noise.

    Note

    This verb takes no object, unlike the verb meaning "annoy". Nobody is bugged here, because the person doing the bugging is the problem. It sits most comfortably in the progressive, as in "He's been buggin' all week," and is often written with the dropped g. Keep it to casual speech.

14. 14
    web trackernouncountable

    A small, usually invisible element, often a single-pixel image, placed in a web page or email to record who opens it or what they do.

    Marketers embedded a bug in the email to learn when each recipient opened it.

    Analysts found several tracking bugs hidden across the company's landing pages.

    Similarbeacon, pixel

15. 15
    shellfishnouncountable

    Any of various crustaceans, such as a lobster, crayfish, or Moreton Bay bug, in regional or informal use.

    The fishermen hauled up a trap full of bugs from the bay.

    At the aquarium, a Moreton Bay bug lay half-buried in the sand of its tank.

    Note

    This is a seafood name as much as a zoological one. On the waters of Trinity Inlet, bugs are plated up beside oysters, prawns and crabs. Compounds usually fix the kind of crustacean, as in Moreton Bay bug and mudbug, and the bare plural is left to context. Maine's lobstermen have their own version of the same idea. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • Bugs are served beside oysters, prawns and crabs on boats on Trinity Inlet. en.wiktionary.org
    • Moreton Bay bugs collectively comprise two species: Thenus australiensis and Thenus parindicus. The compound narrows the kind of crustacean without identifying one species. fish.gov.au
    • Maine lobstermen also call their catch bugs. visitmaine.com
16. 16
    channel logonouncountable

    A small, usually translucent logo placed in a corner of a TV program to identify the network or channel.

    The network's bug stayed in the lower-right corner throughout the broadcast.

    Fans complained that the bug blocked part of the on-screen score.

    Similarlogo

    Note

    This is the television trade's word for the corner logo, known more formally as a digital on-screen graphic. The word has spread to other permanent overlays: a score bug keeps a match's running score on screen. Possessives come naturally, as in Channel 4's bug or the network's bug, because the mark identifies whoever is broadcasting. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • A television corner logo is a digital on-screen graphic. en.wikipedia.org
    • A score bug displays the current score during a sports broadcast. en.wikipedia.org
    • The logo identifies the broadcaster or programming source. en.wikipedia.org
17. 17
    noununcountable

    An informal name, chiefly in LGBTQ communities, for HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.

    Several friends in the community had already contracted the bug by the late 1980s.

    He has carried the bug for twenty years, and thanks to modern antiretroviral drugs his viral load is now undetectable.

    SimilarHIV

    Note

    This is an in-group name, used chiefly in LGBTQ communities and almost always with the article: the bug. It underlies bug chasing, a term found in sociological writing on barebacking. Bug chasers are HIV-negative men who seek infection from HIV-positive partners, and those who pass it on knowingly are called gift givers. Outside the community, or in any clinical setting, plain HIV is the neutral word. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • The HIV sense of bug underlies bug chasing. research.manchester.ac.uk
    • Bug chasing is discussed in sociological writing on barebacking. uu.diva-portal.org
    • Bug chasing names the practice; bug chasers are the people. The defining intent is to acquire HIV, while gift givers intentionally transmit it. Seeking an HIV-positive partner alone does not establish either role. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
18. 18
    union marknouncountable

    A small emblem printed on a product to show it was produced by unionized labor; a union bug.

    The printed program displayed a bug confirming union production.

    The campaign insisted that every yard sign carry the union bug, proof it had been printed in a union shop.

    Similarlabel, emblem

    Note

    Printers use this as shorthand for the union bug, dropping the first word within the trade. The mark appears on leaflets, ballots and stationery and certifies that a unionized shop did the work. Outside printing, union label or the full union bug makes the meaning clearer. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • The union mark appears on leaflets. buttonsonline.com
    • The union mark appears on ballots. devilatmydoorstep.wordpress.com
    • The union mark appears on stationery. crst.net
    • The union mark certifies production by union labor. radix.coop
19. 19
    fossil creaturenounslangcountable

    A trilobite: an extinct marine arthropod with a segmented, three-lobed exoskeleton.

    He spent the afternoon splitting shale and finally freed a trilobite, his first complete bug of the season.

    The museum's drawers were full of bugs collected from Cambrian deposits.

    Similartrilobite

    Note

    Fossil hunters use this slang more at the quarry than in a journal. In Kirk Johnson's Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway (2007), a claim owner says visitors are welcome to dig "a few bugs" at his trilobite site. The natural verb is dig. In scientific writing, the creature is always a trilobite. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • Kirk Johnson wrote Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway. chicagoreviewpress.com
    • The book was published in 2007. burkemuseum.org
    • The book reports that Harris permitted the travellers to dig trilobites at his claim, using the words 'a few bugs'. This is reported speech, not a verbatim quotation of Harris. en.wiktionary.org
20. 20
    nounobsolete

    A hobgoblin or bogey; by extension, anything that inspires dread or terror.

    Sir, spare your threats: / The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

    c. 1610, William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”

    Similarbogey, bugbear, bogle

    Note

    This is the oldest meaning: the Middle English hobgoblin that lies behind the bedbug sense. Shakespeare still uses it in The Winter's Tale: "The bug which you would fright me with I seek." On its own the meaning is obsolete, so in such passages gloss it as bogey. It survives in bugbear and probably bugaboo, and bogle and boggard may belong to the same frightening family. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • The frightening-being sense is the oldest meaning of bug, dating to Middle English. en.wiktionary.org
    • The bedbug sense derives from Middle English bugge meaning a scarecrow or hobgoblin. en.wiktionary.org
    • The quoted line occurs in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Act 3, scene 2; Hermione speaks it to Leontes. folger-main-site-assets.s3.amazonaws.com
    • The frightening-being sense survives in bugbear. en.wiktionary.org
21. 21
    pilot's markernouncountable

    A marker that a pilot positions by hand on a flight instrument to flag a reference value.

    Before approach, the captain set the bug to the target airspeed.

    He nudged the bug around the dial to match the assigned heading.

    Similarmarker

    Note

    For pilots the bug works as a memory aid. You look up the right speed for the phase of flight, set the reminder bug, and then, as Flying Magazine put it in 2004, "you fly to the bug" instead of reading the number. Fly to the bug is the working idiom. Airspeed and heading bugs are the common kinds. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • A bug provides a visual reminder of the appropriate flight speed. en.wiktionary.org
    • Flying Magazine published the quoted wording in 2004. en.wiktionary.org
22. 22
    set a markerverbtransitive

    To represent a value by setting a bug, a movable index marker, on an instrument's dial.

    He bugged the decision height on the altimeter during the approach briefing.

    Always bug the go-around altitude before you begin the descent.

    Similarset, mark

    Note

    The verb comes from the cockpit marker, and it appears most often as a participle. Tom Horne in AOPA Turbine Pilot (1996) writes of "steering to the bugged heading." The object is the value being marked, such as a heading, a speed or an altitude, not the instrument it is set on. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Tom Horne wrote the cited article in AOPA Turbine Pilot in 1996. en.wiktionary.org
    • The article contains the exact words “steering to the bugged heading.” aopa.org
23. 23
    allowance marknounslangUScountable

    An asterisk printed beside an apprentice jockey's name to denote the weight allowance they receive.

    The racing form carried a bug after the rookie's name.

    In the racing program, the little bug beside the rider's name told bettors he was an apprentice with a weight break.

    Similarasterisk

    Note

    On an American racing program, the bugs are counted. Anita Scialli's Inside Track 1999 sets out the scale: one asterisk beside an apprentice's name means a five-pound allowance, two mean seven pounds, and three mean ten. Reading the bugs is therefore part of reading the form. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Bugs are asterisks in American racing programs that indicate an apprentice's weight allowance. oaklawn.com
    • One, two, and three asterisks indicate allowances of five, seven, and ten pounds respectively. en.wiktionary.org
24. 24
    nounslangUScountable

    A young apprentice jockey, one still early in a riding career.

    The stable's promising bug won three races in his debut month.

    Veterans often mentor a bug during their first season on the track.

    Similarapprentice

    Note

    The rider is named after the mark. The asterisk on the program flags an apprentice's weight allowance, and racetrack slang transferred the word to the young jockey who carries it. Bug boy is the fuller form. Both belong to American racing talk rather than general use. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • The name for the apprentice jockey derives from the asterisk marking the allowance. en.wiktionary.org
    • The program's asterisk indicates an apprentice's weight allowance, and bug also became a name for the apprentice. oaklawn.com
    • Bug boy is a fuller name for an apprentice jockey. www1.drf.com
25. 25
    wild cardnouncountable

    A limited form of wild card used in some variants of poker.

    With four hearts and the bug in his hand, he already had a flush and declined to draw.

    The house rules let the bug fill any flush but nothing else.

    Similarjoker

    Note

    The bug is a wild card on a short leash. It may count only as an ace, or to fill a straight or a flush, whereas a fully wild joker can stand for anything. Because only some variants use it, players settle what the bug can complete before the cards are dealt. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

    • A bug is a limited wild card that can represent an ace or complete a straight or flush. en.wikipedia.org
    • A fully wild joker can represent any card. en.wikipedia.org
    • Wild-card arrangements depend on the game and may require agreement before dealing. en.wikipedia.org
26. 26
    telegraph keynouncountable

    A semi-automatic telegraph key that generates a stream of Morse dots mechanically, letting an operator send code faster with less hand strain.

    Veteran telegraphers swore by the bug for high-speed traffic.

    He adjusted the bug's contact spacing before the morning schedule.

    Note

    Operators gave the machine this name themselves. Paul Gallico's Farewell to Sport (1938) shows a telegrapher tapping away "with his bug, as he calls his transmitter." The key sends its run of dots by itself, while the dashes are still made by hand. Arthur Reinhold Nilson's Radio Code Manual (1942) compares this to an ordinary key turned up on edge. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • Telegraph operators supplied the nickname bug. telegraph-history.org
    • Paul Gallico wrote Farewell to Sport. nebraskapress.unl.edu
    • Gallico's book describes a telegraph operator using a bug and contains the quoted wording. en.wiktionary.org
    • The key generates dots mechanically while the operator makes the dashes manually. en.wikipedia.org
    • Arthur Reinhold Nilson's Radio Code Manual compares the bug's dash operation to an ordinary key turned on edge. en.wiktionary.org
27. 27
    slot machine blockernounslangcountable

    A small metal device that, once fitted inside a slot machine, stops certain winning combinations from appearing.

    The operator rigged the payout by installing a bug.

    Opening the machine, the inspector found a small metal bug fitted so that the top-paying combination could never land.

    Note

    In slot-machine slang, a bug is a rigging part. John Scarne's Complete Guide to Gambling (1961) describes it as a small, flat half-circle of iron, roughly an inch across. Illegal operators used it because they did not want to give a player even one chance at the jackpot. The word always implies a fixed machine. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • In slot-machine slang, a bug is a part used to rig the machine. en.wiktionary.org
    • John Scarne wrote the gambling guide published in 1961. openlibrary.org
    • Scarne describes the device as a small, flat iron half-circle approximately an inch in size. en.wiktionary.org
    • Illegal operators used the device to prevent players from winning the jackpot. en.wiktionary.org
    • In the specified slot-machine sense, the device implies deliberate interference with winning combinations. en.wiktionary.org
28. 28
    card-hiding clipnounslangcountable

    A metal clip fastened to the underside of a table or similar surface to hold hidden cards as a means of cheating.

    He palmed the card and tucked it into the bug between hands.

    The dealer's bug let him swap cards without anyone noticing.

    Note

    Where the slot-machine bug lets the house cheat the player, this one serves the card sharp. Robert Frederick Foster's Foster's Complete Hoyle (1897) mentions sharpers who stick cards "in a bug under the table." Jon Sharpe's Dakota Danger (2006) pictures it as a steel clip, shaped like a money clip with two sharp ends, that held palmed cards until they were needed. Source

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

    • The card-table bug is used by card cheats. gutenberg.org
    • Robert Frederick Foster wrote Foster's Complete Hoyle, first published in 1897. en.wikipedia.org
    • Foster mentions sharpers concealing cards in a bug under the table. gutenberg.org
    • Dakota Danger is attributed to Jon Sharpe. en.wiktionary.org
    • Dakota Danger describes a steel device resembling a money clip with two sharp ends, used to hold palmed cards until needed. en.wiktionary.org
29. 29
    noundatedUS

    In oil prospecting, a tiny fossil such as a foraminifer, studied to identify rock layers.