# plug

Pronunciation: say "PLUG" /plʌɡ/

## Noun

1. A pronged connecting device that fits into a matching socket, especially one used to make an electrical connection.
   - Simple: A part at the end of an electric cord that fits into a wall outlet.
   - _The vacuum's plug wouldn't reach the outlet, so she used an extension cord._
   - _European plugs have two round prongs and don't fit American outlets._
2. A piece of wood, metal, or other material used to stop up or fill a hole.
   - Simple: A small piece of wood, metal, or other material that fills a hole.
   - _The carpenter tapped a wooden plug into the screw hole to hide it._
   - _Without its drain plug, the boat slowly filled with water at the dock._
5. An act of promoting a product, such as a book, film, or play, for example during an interview or a commercial. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A short mention of a product, book, or movie that helps sell it.
   - _Every guest on the show gets thirty seconds for a shameless plug._
   - _The article read less like journalism and more like a paid plug for the resort._
6. An electric socket; a wall outlet into which a corded device is connected.
   - Simple: A place on the wall where you put in an electric cord to get power.
   - _Every seat at the airport gate had a plug for charging laptops._
   - _He searched the café for a free plug before his battery died._
7. In geology, a usually round or oval mass of rock that formed when molten rock cooled and hardened in a volcano's vent.
   - Simple: A round mass of hard rock that formed when melted rock cooled inside a volcano's opening.
   - _Devils Tower in Wyoming is often described as a plug exposed by millions of years of erosion._
   - _Erosion stripped away the cone, leaving the resistant plug standing alone above the plain._
8. Someone who sells illegal drugs; a drug dealer. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A person you can buy illegal drugs from.
   - _He claimed he was just a middleman, not the plug himself._
   - _Her plug stopped answering after the arrests last month._
10. A fishing lure with a rigid, buoyant or semi-buoyant body and one or more hooks.
   - Simple: A small hard object with hooks that you pull through water to catch fish.
   - _She switched to a shallow-running plug when the bass moved into the weeds._
   - _Saltwater anglers throw large plugs from the surf for striped bass._
11. Short for fireplug. — Ellipsis of fireplug (“fire hydrant”).
   - Simple: Short for fireplug. It means a fire hydrant: the water post that firefighters connect hoses to.
   - _The engine crew hunted for the nearest plug as smoke poured from the windows._
   - _City crews painted every plug on the block bright yellow last spring._
12. An ornament for a body piercing, shaped like a short cylinder and commonly used in larger-gauge holes, particularly in the ear.
   - Simple: A short, round piece of jewelry worn in a stretched hole in the ear.
   - _After months of stretching, he could finally fit a half-inch plug in his lobe._
   - _Stone and glass plugs are popular because they don't irritate healing piercings._
15. A small seedling raised in an individual cell of a tray filled with peat or compost, ready for transplanting.
   - Simple: A young plant grown in a small tray cell, ready to be moved into the ground.
   - _The nursery sells lettuce plugs ready to set straight into the bed._
   - _She pressed each plug into the soil, keeping its root ball intact._
16. A flat oblong cake of tobacco leaves pressed into a solid block. *(US)*
   - Simple: A flat, oblong block of tobacco that has been pressed together hard.
   - _The old store sold plugs of tobacco from a glass case._
   - _He bit off a corner of the plug and chewed slowly._
17. A block of wood fitted into a wall to give nails something to grip where the masonry would not hold them.
   - Simple: A small block of wood set into a wall so that nails can grip and hold.
   - _Carpenters drove the trim nails into a plug embedded in the stone wall._
   - _Without a plug, the nails would never grip the hard masonry._
18. A branch led off a water main to supply a hose.
   - Simple: A side pipe branching off a main to feed water into a hose.
   - _The crew opened the plug and water surged into the hose._
   - _A street plug supplied the hoses fighting the warehouse fire._
19. A standard, modular section of an aircraft fuselage that can be added or removed.
   - Simple: A standard part of a plane's body that can be added or removed to change its length.
   - _Designers stretched the jet by inserting a plug ahead of the wing._
   - _Removing a plug produced a shorter, lighter variant of the airliner._
23. A broken-down or worthless horse of little value. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: A weak, worn-out horse that is not worth much.
   - _The trader tried to sell us a swaybacked plug._
   - _A couple of worn-out plugs stood in the corral._
24. A high silk hat that tapers toward the crown. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: A tall silk top hat that gets narrower toward the top.
   - _A row of men in plugs stood outside the opera house._
   - _He brushed his silk plug before the banquet._
25. In certain algae, a growth of protoplasm that blocks the pores of the cells.
   - Simple: A bit of living material inside some algae that blocks the tiny holes in their cells.
   - _Under the microscope, a plug closed each pore in the algal wall._
   - _The cells form a plug to seal off the pore openings._

## Verb

3. To stop up with a plug, or to make something tight by stopping a hole.
   - Simple: To close or fill a hole so that nothing can get through.
   - _Workers plugged the breach in the levee with sandbags before the river crested._
   - _You'll need to plug the gap around the window frame before winter._
4. To give something publicity, especially a product or service, or refer to it in a way that sounds promotional.
   - Simple: To talk about a product or thing in a good way so people will buy or try it.
   - _Authors tour talk shows to plug their latest books._
   - _The podcast host plugged the sponsor's mattress brand between segments._
9. To fire a bullet into someone. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To shoot a person with a bullet from a gun.
   - _The gangster threatened to plug the witness if he talked._
   - _Somebody plugged him twice in the shoulder outside the pool hall._
13. To have sexual intercourse with someone as the penetrating partner. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To have sex with someone.
   - _In the locker room he boasted about plugging some girl from the gym._
   - _He claimed he could plug any woman in the club, which nobody believed._
14. To keep steadily working at a task despite difficulty or slow progress. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: To keep working hard at something without giving up.
   - _Even when results were slow, he chose to plug away at the manuscript._
   - _They kept plugging at the problem until a solution finally emerged._
20. To take a drug into the body through the rectum. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To take a drug by inserting it into the body through the rectum.
   - _They plug the substance to make a small dose go further._
   - _She warned that plugging the drug can damage the tissue._

## Noun

21. Any worn-out or useless article. *(dated)*
   - Simple: An old, worn-out thing that is no longer any use.
   - _The market stall was full of plugs nobody wanted._
   - _She called the secondhand watch a plug and tossed it aside._
22. A published book that fails to sell, left unwanted on the shelves. *(dated)*
   - Simple: A book that no one buys and that fails to sell.
   - _The memoir turned out to be a plug, pulped within the year._
   - _Bookstores returned the plugs to the warehouse unsold._

## Origin

This word comes from Dutch 'plug', from Middle Dutch 'plugge' (peg, plug), going back through Old Dutch to Proto-West Germanic. Its deeper origin is uncertain: it may derive from Proto-Germanic, but the word seems to have been limited to northern continental West Germanic, and it is perhaps ultimately from the same source as Dutch 'plag' (cut-out sod).

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/plug (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).