fug

• IPA^(key): /fʌɡ/
• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

Unknown. Compare British slang fogo (“stench”) and English fog, or possibly a blend of funk +‎ fog.

fug (countable and uncountable, plural fugs)

1. A heavy, musty, and unpleasant atmosphere, usually in a poorly-ventilated area.
   • 1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 8, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 131:

     'Made one quite thankful to get back to the fug, though as a rule I think the way these trains are overheated is something scandalous'.

   • 1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, Virago Press, paperback edition, page 4

     On certain days, when hot currents shimmered off Oyster's Reef, we would detect the chalk-dust of the mullock heaps, acrid; or, from the opal mines themselves, the ghastly fug of the tunnels and shafts.

   • 2004, John Derbyshire, "Boxing Day", National Review, November 8, 2004

     The gym teacher left that year, his successors had no interest in boxing, and society soon passed into a zone where the idea of thirteen-year-old boys punching each other's faces for educational purposes became as unthinkable as the dense fug of tobacco smoke in our school's staff room.

   • 2005, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, Bloomsbury, hardback edition, page 42

     The misty fug his breath had left on the window sparkled in the orange glare of the streetlamp outside.

   • 2008, Terry Pratchett, Going Postal, →ISBN, page 288:

     That's what a fug was. You could have cut cubes out of the air and sold it for cheap building material.

2. (figuratively) A state of lethargy and confusion; daze.
   • 2011, Olivia Manning, The Spoilt City: The Balkan Trilogy 2, →ISBN:

     So delicious after the fug of summer. It makes one feel so alive.

   • 2015, Kate Riordan, The Girl in the Photograph, →ISBN:

     Somewhere in the fug of her mind she remembered how to close it and fetched the pole, slotting it into the mechanism above and beginning to turn the handles.

3. (figuratively) A state of chaos or confusion.
   • 2002, Chris Beckett, “Marcher”, in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection, →ISBN:

     There was a fug of fear in the room.

   • 2006, Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races, →ISBN:

     Viewed from this perspective, the Victorian era reeks of a suffocating and bigoted complacency, and, no doubt, many white imperialists existed in a fug of self-righteous superiority.

   • 2013, Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy, →ISBN, page 7:

     But now am in total fug about what to text Roxster about tonight, and whether I should tell him about the nits.

   • 2014, Robert Anthony Welch, The Cold of May Day Monday: An Approach to Irish Literary History, →ISBN:

     Her translations are dimmed over with a fug of late eighteenthcentury poetic diction, a striving for sublimity or for sentimental effect.

fug (third-person singular simple present fugs, present participle fugging, simple past and past participle fugged)

1. To create a fug (heavy unpleasant atmosphere).
   • 2008, Antony Moore, The Swap, →ISBN, page 231:

     Inside, the Golden Lion was fugged with the smoke of too many cigarettes and the unhappy sound of a darts team practising.

   • 2012, Phil Rickman, The Heresy of Dr Dee, →ISBN:

     I'd walked down, for maybe the last time, from my lodgings behind New Fish Street, through air already fugged with smoke from the morning fires.

   • 2013, Tom Pollock, The Glass Republic: The Skyscraper Throne, →ISBN:

     The rich sewer gases fugged around her and she shook her head, trying to clear it.

2. To be surrounded by a fug (heavy unpleasant atmosphere).
   • 1921, Everybody's Magazine - Volume 44, page 38:

     "Well, I like it a jolly sight better than fugging up in those carriages with all that gassing crowd of Garden Home fussers."

   • 2005, Craig Taylor, Light, →ISBN, page 74:

     The air was warm and close and the late afternoon sun was fugging through grey clouds and making them light - still grey, but light, really light.

3. To put into a fug (daze).
   • 2011, Richard Herring, How Not to Grow Up!: A Coming of Age Memoir. Sort Of., →ISBN, page 34-35:

     The adrenalin, though diminished, was still running through my veins; the red mist was lifting but my mind was fugged by this unfamiliar combination of hormones, slowly intermingling with indignity and contrition and the dawning of familiar, ignominious defeat.

Sound shift from fuck.

fug

1. Euphemistic form of fuck.
   • 1985, Herbert A. Applebaum, Blue Chips, Brunswick Pub. Co., page 126:

     It's always somethin' or other. Ah, fug it. I'm away now.

   • 2012, Drew Campbell, Dead Letter House, →ISBN:

     Oh fug. Whad a mess.

   • 2015, Lynn Lindquist, Secret of the Sevens, →ISBN:

     “Why is this door locked?” she shouts. “Oh fug!”

fug (third-person singular simple present fugs, present participle fugging, simple past and past participle fugged)

1. Euphemistic form of fuck.
   1. Used to express displeasure.
      • 1948, Norman Mailer, Naked Dead, page 692:

        He knew he would never eat them; they were merely an added load in his pack. Aaah, fug this.

      • 1969, Seymour Blicker -, Blues Chased a Rabbit, page 62:

        Scornfully the driver answered, "Fug you muthafug, you ain't gon drive this muthafuggin cah."

      • 2005, Joe Taylor, The World's Thinnest Fat Man: Stories, →ISBN, page 82:

        "Fug this place," Jeff said. "Let's go to the pier in case that jerk comes back with a gun."

   2. To damage or destroy.
      • 2007, Paul Mitchell, Dodging the Bull: Stories, →ISBN, page 51:

        Zit my fault the rotary fugged up and the new one's buggered?

      • 2010, Julian Barnes, Metroland, →ISBN, page 39:

        You mean like in Zola–because they were fugged up in their turn by their parents.

      • 2013, J. Michael Shell, The Apprentice Journals, →ISBN, page 7:

        Tell them every detail, so they can find an Apprentice again, because if they don't, they're fugged.”

      • 2013, Jonathan Miles, Want Not, →ISBN, page 33:

        He did an imitation of Big Jerry in full-choke cantankerousness: “'You'll just fug it up.'

   3. To copulate with.
      • 2014, Richie Unterberger, Urban Spacemen & Wayfaring Strangers, →ISBN:

        All went well until girls started writing things like, 'I want to win a date with Tuli because I want him to fug me.'

      • 2016, Julian Barnes, Metroland, →ISBN, page 10:

        Married, two children, doesn't let him fug her any more.

fug (plural fugs)

1. Euphemistic form of fuck.
   1. (singular only, with the) Used as an intensifier.
      • 1961, Robert Gover, One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, page 21:

        I don't know jes where the fug he think he is at.

      • 2013, Dan Ferullo, Monster Hill, →ISBN:

        How the fug does a thug like you know about any preacher?

      • 2013, Ian McDonald, Out on Blue Six, →ISBN:

        I mean, who the fug cares?

   2. Something of little value.
      • 2013, Anne Lazurko, Dollybird, →ISBN:

        I didn't know what any of it meant and didn't give a fug either.

      • 2013, Dan Ferullo, Monster Hill, →ISBN:

        After a short pause, Jay proclaimed, “I don't give a fug what you wave in fronna me. I'm sticking to my story.”

   3. A contemptible person.
      • 1942, Army and Navy Journal - Volume 80, Issues 1-26, page 345:

        Look at those fugs!

      • 2012, Elizabeth George, The Edge of Nowhere, →ISBN:

        'You bein' there an' him bein' there an' you such a fug of a loser an' him such a fug of a winner . . .'

• GFU

• fugu, afug, afugu

From Vulgar Latin *fugō, from Latin fugiō. Compare Romanian fugi, fug.

fug (third-person singular present indicative fudzi / fudze, past participle fudzitã or vdzitã)

1. I run.
2. I flee.

• fudziri / fudzire, fudzeari / fudzeare
• fudzit
• fudzu
• fugã
• fugar

• alag
• plec

From Latin fugō (“I chase or drive away, put to flight”). Compare Romanian fuga, fug.

fug (third-person singular present indicative fugã, past participle fugatã or vgatã)

1. I hunt, eliminate.

• fugari / fugare
• fugat
• fugã

fug

1. imperative of fuga

fug

1. inflection of fugi:
   1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. third-person plural present indicative

fug

1. fog

• J. Poole W. Barnes, A Glossary, with Some Pieces of Verse, of the Old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy (1867)