slug

noun

1. Any of many gastropod mollusks, having no (or only a rudimentary) shell.
2. (obsolete)A slow, lazy person; a sluggard.
3. A bullet or other projectile fired from a firearm; in modern usage, generally refers to a shotgun slug.

   “[…] all our Ammunition was spent. Those of us who had Money made Slugs of it; their next Shift was to take the middle Screws out of their Guns, and charge their Pieces with them.”

   “A mass accelerator propels a solid metal slug using precisely-controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. The slug is designed to squash or shatter on impact, increasing the energy it transfers to the target. If this were not the case, it would simply punch a hole right through, doing minimal damage.”

4. A solid block or piece of roughly shaped metal.
5. A counterfeit coin, especially one used to steal from vending machines.
6. A shot of a drink, usually alcoholic.
7. A title, name or header, a catchline, a short phrase or title to indicate the content of a newspaper or magazine story for editing use.
8. (rare)The imperial (English) unit of mass that accelerates by 1 foot per second squared (1 ft/s²) when a force of one pound-force (lbf) is exerted on it.

   “The average slug has a mass of around 0.00002 slugs.”

   “The slug is defined as the mass which would accelerate at a rate of 1 ft/s² under a force of one pound-force (lbf). Since 1 lbf is the force exerted on a mass of one pound by a standard gravitational field (of exactly 9.80665 meters per square second), a slug is thus exactly equal to 196133/6096 pounds (about 32.1740485564 lb or 14.593902937206 kg).”

9. A discrete mass of a material that moves as a unit, usually through another material.

   “This is perhaps best done by considering a unit cell consisting of one bubble and part of the liquid slugs on each side of it…”

   “When these layers are recovered they inevitably result in a slug of sawdust which goes into the digester and tends to plug the screens in a Kamyr digester.”

   “Then, just a few nights before August 6, Gilbert testified that a "slug of sand-rock" weighing an estimate of one to two tons fell on his continuous miner as he was taking a cut, approximately fifteen feet from where he was standing.”

   “Tvpically, enough sand is emplaced to create a slug of sand that moves along the shore causing noticeable and somewhat dramatic local changes.”

   “This is also furthered by the creation of a slug of light hydrocarbons near the oil displacement front, extracted by the carbon dioxide from the oil”

10. A motile pseudoplasmodium formed by amoebae working together.
11. An accessory to a diesel-electric locomotive, used to increase adhesive weight and allow full power to be applied at a lower speed. It has trucks with traction motors, but lacks a prime mover, being powered by electricity from the mother locomotive, and may or may not have a control cab.
12. A black screen used to separate broadcast items.
13. A piece of type metal imprinted by a linotype machine; also a black mark placed in the margin to indicate an error; also said in application to typewriters; type slug.
14. (regional)A stranger picked up as a passenger to enable legal use of high occupancy vehicle lanes.
15. (US, slang)A hitchhiking commuter.
16. The last part of a clean URL, the displayed resource name, similar to a filename.

    “Slugs are better than just appending the document ID to the URL, as they are readable and understandable by visitors. They are also an important part of a good SEO. So that we can use slugs, every slug has to be unique.”

17. (obsolete)A hindrance, an obstruction.

    “money would be stirring, if it were not for this slug”

18. A ship that sails slowly.

    “His rendezvous for his fleet, and for all sluggs to come to, should be between Calais and Dover.”

19. A block of text at the beginning of a scene that sets up the scene's location, characters, etc.
20. An infertile egg of a reptile.
21. A hard blow, usually with the fist.
22. (US, informal)A special-purpose security of the State and Local Government Series.

verb

1. To drink quickly; to gulp; to down.
2. To take part in casual carpooling; to form ad hoc, informal carpools for commuting, essentially a variation of ride-share commuting and hitchhiking.

   “"We believe in car-pooling, but let's do it without restricting traffic. ..." Sam Snyder, 51, of Burke, who has been slugging to his job at the US Customs ....”

   “no sane person would attempt to commute that far every day. Sure they do. I've often slugged to Fredericksburg and back. The VRE carries hundreds of people per day, and the I-95 HOV lanes carry tens of thousands of people each day.”

3. (intransitive)To become reduced in diameter, or changed in shape, by passing from a larger to a smaller part of the bore of the barrel.
4. (intransitive, obsolete)To move slowly or sluggishly; to lie idle.

   “To slug in slouth and sensuall delights.”

5. (transitive)To load with a slug or slugs.

   “to slug a gun”

6. To make sluggish.

   “So little do we fear , you slug you”

7. (transitive)To hit very hard, usually with the fist.

   “He insulted my mother, so I slugged him.”

   “The fighter slugged his opponent into unconsciousness.”

   “The man is a mechanical genius. He also has one of the worst conduct records in the army. He likes to slug officers.”

   “"Urgh... I know you wanted to have another day at the con, but if I had to listen to her speak anymore, I was going to do something I'd regret. Honestly, you probably should've slugged her." "Believe me. I wanted to."”