tugged

verb

past tense of tug
1
as in pulled
to cause to follow by applying steady force on tugged on the door until it opened

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in struggled
to devote serious and sustained effort she's tugged all her life to get to where she is now in the business world

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tugged The late night host tugged at her sleeve cutout to get a look at the ink. — Bailey Bujnosek, InStyle, 27 Aug. 2026 The seas have been kind, or at least kinder than expected, to SpaceX's Starship spacecraft, as it's been tugged through the Indian Ocean to friendlier tides. — Josh Dinner, Space.com, 18 Aug. 2026 Hicks broke up a Mahomes pass to Noah Gray, but Hicks could have tugged Gray before making the play. — Pete Sweeney, Kansas City Star, 11 Aug. 2026 The incident appeared to have tugged on something much deeper. — Ruben Vives, Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2026 Either way, the spread of kudzu, Burmese pythons, Joro spiders, mosquitoes, killer bees, and Asiatic false hawk’s-beards, to name just a few, has tugged on some primal taproot in us. — Dan Piepenbring, Harpers Magazine, 4 Aug. 2026 Meanwhile, other storylines were timely and tugged at heartstrings, such as when her character officiated the first gay male wedding on daytime TV in a 2014 episode following Marlena’s emotional coming-out scenes with her grandson. — Jeff Nelson, PEOPLE, 29 July 2026 The border shifted and changed hands here at least four times in the 19th century and a fifth time in the 20th, tugged south by war and treaty, peace talks and purchases. — Lauren Villagran, USA Today, 28 June 2026 In bringing a piece of her mother to the event, Obama tugged at a feeling that many will relate to – wishing a late family member could be with you during life’s milestone moments. — Fiona Sinclair Scott, CNN Money, 17 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tugged
  1. pulled
  2. struggled
  3. hauled
  4. labored
  5. dragged
  6. worked
  7. endeavored
Verb
  • But Joshi says mental health care is often treated as an afterthought in disaster situations, and resources can get pulled before people have fully made sense of the trauma.
    — Jonathan Lambert, NPR, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Cheers erupted as video on Friday showed the first man – 30-year-old mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah – being pulled from the tunnel.
    — Sana Noor Haq, CNN Money, 4 Sep. 2026
Definition of pulled
Verb
  • Salas struggled offensively throughout 2024, missed almost all of 2025 because of a stress reaction in his back and plummeted on prospect lists as a result.
    — Dennis Lin, New York Times, 1 Sep. 2026
  • Cuba’s daily grind takes its toll The day before classes started, Yurima Izaguirre struggled to pull up last year’s school uniform on the youngest of her three children.
    — Dánica Coto, Los Angeles Times, 1 Sep. 2026
Definition of struggled
Verb
  • More than 200 walruses were hauled out on the beach, grunting and groaning, wriggling and jostling for position.
    — Sarah Kingdom, Forbes.com, 30 Aug. 2026
  • Yet no one hauled him before Congress to answer for stoking racial tensions, snubbing George Washington, or making America sad on her birthday.
    — Julian Lucas, New Yorker, 20 Aug. 2026
Definition of hauled
Verb
  • Humans engaged user interfaces to command software and engage with outputs like dashboards, while APIs labored in the background.
    — George C. Lee II, Fortune, 26 Aug. 2026
  • Royals starter Seth Lugo labored through 4 2/3 innings while allowing five runs.
    — Kansas City Star, Kansas City Star, 15 Aug. 2026
Definition of labored
Verb
  • One smashed in the front passenger window while others approached the driver‘s side door and dragged him outside.
    — Jenny Jarvie Follow, Los Angeles Times, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Technology stocks dragged the market lower, with the Nasdaq Composite sliding by around 1%.
    — Justina Lee,Alex Harring, CNBC, 1 Sep. 2026
Definition of dragged
Verb
  • Unlike the repeatability of CNC production, each Eagle & Summit is individually worked by experienced engraving artisans directly on the titanium surface.
    — New Atlas, New Atlas, 3 Sep. 2026
  • The couple bid $5 million, and worked with Central Bank to put in their $10 million total bid.
    — Charlotte Phillipp, PEOPLE, 2 Sep. 2026
Definition of worked
Verb
  • Whatever people think of the film, it was endeavored to be made with purely with the process at its heart.
    — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 15 Aug. 2026
  • Italy’s defense ministry transferred ownership to the town of Affi in 2018, and in 2022 the University of Florence endeavored on a study to map the bunker’s expansive reach.
    — Andy Battaglia, ARTnews.com, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of endeavored

Browse Nearby Words

tugboats
tugged
tugging
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Cite this Entry

“Tugged.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tugged. Accessed 5 Sep. 2026.

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