bug

Meanings

Noun

• An insect of the order Hemiptera (the “true bugs”).
• Any of various species of marine or freshwater crustaceans; e.g. a Moreton Bay bug, mudbug.
• Any insect, arachnid, or other terrestrial arthropod that is a pest.
• Any insect, arachnid, myriapod or entognath.
• A bedbug.
• A problem that needs fixing.
• A contagious illness, or a bacterium or virus causing it.
• An enthusiasm for something; an obsession.
• A keen enthusiast or hobbyist.
• A concealed electronic eavesdropping or intercept device.
• A small and usually invisible file (traditionally a single-pixel image) on a World Wide Web page, primarily used to track users.
• A small, usually transparent or translucent image placed in a corner of a television program to identify the broadcasting network or cable channel.
• A manually positioned marker in flight instruments.
• A semi-automated telegraph key.
• Hobgoblin, scarecrow; anything that terrifies.
• HIV.
• A limited form of wild card in some variants of poker.
• A trilobite.
• Synonym of oil bug
• An asterisk denoting an apprentice jockey's weight allowance.
• A young apprentice jockey.
• Synonym of union bug
• A small piece of metal used in a slot machine to block certain winning combinations.
• A metal clip attached to the underside of a table, etc. to hold hidden cards, as a form of cheating.

Verb

• To annoy.
• To act suspiciously or irrationally, especially in a way that annoys others.
• To install an electronic listening device or devices in.

Origin

• First attested in this form around 1620 (referring to a bedbug), from earlier bugge, a conflation of two words:
• Middle English bugge ("scarecrow, hobgoblin"), from Proto-Germanic *bugja- ("swollen up, thick"), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (compare Norwegian bugge ("big man"), dialectal Low German Bögge). Or, from a word related to buck and originally referring to a goat-shaped specter.
• Middle English budde ("beetle"), from Old English budda (see sċearnbudda), from Proto-Germanic *buddô, *buzdô, from the same ultimate source as above (compare Low German Budde ("louse, grub"), Norwegian budda ("newborn domestic animal")). More at bud.
• The term is used to refer to technical errors and problems at least as early as the 19th century, predating the commonly known story of a moth being caught in a computer.