slug
photo credit: "Connection " by Ari Bakker (CC-BY-2.0) Definition:
(verb)
to hit hard
Examples:
Sometimes boxers slug their opponents; sometimes they bite their
opponents' ears.
Quote:
"Once, in New York, I must have been in eleventh grade, and there was this homeless guy on the street who looked just like Santa... So everybody's walking by him, finding him all cute and charming. Then I come by, and he slugs me across the face! And everyone else just kept walking. Because, you know, nobody wants to get hit by Santa."
A heavy-hitting boxer is called a slugger. A fight with a lot of
punching is a slugfest. And of course, one of the most famous baseball
bats is the Louisville Slugger.
Slug is also a way to say bullet, but slugs aren't all about being
tough. A slug in standard English is a slow-moving kind of land mollusk
- basically a snail without a shell. Therefore, if you call a person a
slug, it's not a compliment. It means they're lazy.
Of course, not everyone thinks that's bad. Although it might sound a little
strange to cheer, "Go slugs!" at a basketball game, the banana
slug (a big yellow one) is the well-loved official mascot of the University
of California at Santa Cruz. Other Santa Cruzians agree. A summer camp
song from the Santa Cruz Outdoor Science School goes, "Come on banana
slug, and let me lick off your slime!" Yuck! (disgusting)
A. C. Kemp | January 30, 2003
