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Tug vs Scamble - What's the difference?

tug | scamble |

In transitive terms the difference between tug and scamble

is that tug is to tow by tugboat while scamble is to mangle.

As a noun tug

is a sudden powerful pull.

tug

English

Verb

(tugg)
  • to pull or drag with great effort
    • The police officers tugged the drunkard out of the pub.
  • to pull hard repeatedly
    • He lost his patience trying to undo his shoe-lace, but tugging it made the knot even tighter.
  • to tow by tugboat

    • Derived terms

    * tug down * tug up

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a sudden powerful pull
  • * Dryden
    • At the tug he falls, / Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=September 24 , author=David Ornstein , title=Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=But Van Persie slotted home 40 seconds after the break before David Wheater saw red for a tug on Theo Walcott.}}
  • (nautical) a tugboat
  • (obsolete) A kind of vehicle used for conveying timber and heavy articles.
    • (Halliwell)
  • A trace, or drawing strap, of a harness.
  • (mining) An iron hook of a hoisting tub, to which a tackle is affixed.
  • (slang) An act of masturbation
    • He had a quick tug to calm himself down before his date.

    Derived terms

    * tug of war

    Anagrams

    * ----

    scamble

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Verb

    (scambl)
  • To move awkwardly; to be shuffling, irregular, or unsteady; to sprawl; to shamble.
  • * 1662 , , Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 61:
    • "Or if you will say, that there may some scambling shift be made without them "
  • To move about pushing and jostling; to be rude and turbulent; to scramble; struggle for place or possession.
  • *1596 , Shakespeare, King John, act IV scene III
  • *:How easy dost thou take all England up!
  • *:From forth this morsel of dead royalty,
  • *:The life, the right and truth of all this realm
  • *:Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
  • *:To tug and scamble and to part by the teeth
  • *:The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
  • To mangle.
    • (Mortimer)