slug

I. noun Etymology: Middle English slugge, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Norwegian dialect slugga to walk sluggishly Date: 15th century 1. sluggard 2. a lump, disk, or cylinder of material (as plastic or metal): as a. (1) a musket ball (2) bullet b. a piece of metal roughly shaped for subsequent processing c. a $50 gold piece d. a disk for insertion in a slot machine; especially one used illegally instead of a coin 3. any of numerous chiefly terrestrial pulmonate gastropods (order Stylommatophora) that are found in most parts of the world where there is a reasonable supply of moisture and are closely related to the land snails but are long and wormlike and have only a rudimentary shell often buried in the mantle or entirely absent 4. a smooth soft larva of a sawfly or moth that creeps like a mollusk 5. a. a quantity of liquor drunk in one swallow b. a detached mass of fluid (as water vapor or oil) that causes impact (as in a circulating system) 6. a. a strip of metal thicker than a printer's lead b. a line of type cast as one piece c. a usually temporary type line serving to instruct or identify 7. the gravitational unit of mass in the foot-pound-second system to which a pound force can impart an acceleration of one foot per second per second and which is equal to the mass of an object weighing 32 pounds II. transitive verb (slugged; slugging) Date: 1912 1. to add a printer's slug to 2. to drink in gulps — often used with down III. noun Etymology: perhaps from slug to load with slugs Date: 1830 a heavy blow especially with the fist IV. transitive verb (slugged; slugging) Date: circa 1861 1. to strike heavily with or as if with the fist or a bat 2. fight 4b — usually used in the phrase slug it out