tug
/tʌɡ/
"tug" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tug” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #15,079 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #15,079
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To pull or drag with great effort.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tug |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /tʌɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #15,079 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tug” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tug is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tʌɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,079 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for tug, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TV", "TX", "Ty", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tuggen, toggen, from Old English togian (“to draw, drag”), from Proto-West Germanic *togōn, from Proto-Germanic *tugōną (“to draw, tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull”). Cognate with Middle Low German togen (“to draw”), Mid… The correct English form is tug, spelled T-U-G.
Definition
- 1To pull or drag with great effort.
- 2To pull hard repeatedly.
- 3To tow by tugboat.
- 4To masturbate.
Etymology
From Middle English tuggen, toggen, from Old English togian (“to draw, drag”), from Proto-West Germanic *togōn, from Proto-Germanic *tugōną (“to draw, tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull”). Cognate with Middle Low German togen (“to draw”), Middle High German zogen (“to pull, tear off”), Icelandic toga (“to pull, draw”). Related to tow.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “tug”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-U-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /tʌɡ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “TV” - see the side-by-side comparison. tug vs TV
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.