Definition of "hug"

hug

/hʌɡ/

noun
plural hugs
1. A close embrace, especially when charged with such an emotion as represented by: affection, joy, relief, lust, anger, aggression, compassion, and the like, as opposed to being characterized by formality, equivocation or ambivalence (a half-embrace or "little hug").
2. A particular grip in wrestling.
verb
third-person singular simple present hugs, present participle hugging, simple past and past participle hugged
1. (intransitive, obsolete) To crouch; to huddle as with cold.
  Quotations
  They had a slight breast work, and they hugged down behind it and waited.
  1885, M. Quad, Field, Fort and Fleet, page 354
  That is why they are so little known and never explored. During the day, when a Chilean cruiser nosed around uncomfortably close, the little sloop would be hugged under the lee of one of the islands, sail lowered and anchor dropped.
  1892, Paul Boyton, The Story of Paul Boyton
  bright rocks whose stain of emerald or quartz shaft of shine the starfish hugged beneath the tide .
  1892, The Sewanee Review - Volume 66, page 263
  She put her feet on a rung and hugged down against her knees, making herself even smaller.
  2014, Thomas Gifford, The Cavanaugh Quest
  Zhai Tingshen stood at the window upstairs, his black eyes staring intently at the figure that was tightly hugged below.
  2020, Zhenyinfang, Marital Passion
2. (intransitive) To cling closely together.
3. (transitive) To embrace by holding closely, especially in the arms.
4. (transitive) To stay close to (the shore etc.)
  Quotations
  We toted in the wood and got the fire going nice and comfortable. Lord James still set in one of the chairs and Applegate had cabbaged the other and was hugging the stove.
  1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
  Gourock also boasted a pier railway, although its pier hugged the shore rather than jutting into the bay.
  2020 October 21, Dr Joseph Brennan, “From the main line and over the waves”, in Rail, page 60
5. (transitive, figurative) To hold fast; to cling to; to cherish.
  Quotations
  We hug intellectual deformities, if they bear our names
  1665, Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica: Or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science; […], London: […] E. C[otes] for Henry Eversden […]

Definition of "hug"

hug

noun

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations