subs. (common).—1. A silk hat: also PLUG-HAT: see GOLGOTHA.
1872. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Innocents at Home, ii. A nigger on the box in a biled shirt and a PLUG HAT.
1888. Eclectic Magazine. Cæsar was the implacable foe of the aristocracy, and refused to wear a PLUG HAT up to the day of his death.
2. (common).—A man or beast, short and thick-set: see FORTY-GUTS.
1872. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Innocents at Home, i. An old PLUG HORSE that ate up his market value in hay and barley in seventeen days by the watch.
1888. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22 April. Some of the painted women screamed with delight, and others, in shrill tones, anathematized the jockey who rode the PLUG they had backed.
3. (artisans’).—A workman whose apprenticeship has been irregular; a TURN-OVER (q.v.): specifically (in America) a craftsman who has learned his business in casual or evening classes. Such teaching is called PLUG-TEACHING.
4. (common).—Anything damaged or deteriorated: as an unsuccessful book; an old horse; coins bored full of holes and PLUGGED with base metal; a shop-soiled bicycle; and so forth. Also OLD PLUG. Hence (generally) PLUG = any defect—moral, physical, or otherwise.
1888. Texas Siftings, 3 Nov. Can’t sell you a ticket for that quarter; it’s PLUGGED.
1853. REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, xi. Getting up his subjects by the aid of those royal roads to knowledge, variously known as cribs, crams, PLUGS, abstracts, analyses, or epitomes.
6. (American).—A loafer, well-dressed or other: see PLUG-UGLY.
Verb. (Western States).—1. To hit with a bullet.
