bug Hear it!

bug¹ Definition

bug (bug)

noun

  1. any of an order (Hemiptera) of insects with sucking mouthparts and with forewings thickened toward the base, as a water bug or squash bug
  2. any small arthropod, esp. if regarded as a pest, as a louse, cockroach, or centipede
  3. ☆ a defect or imperfection, as in a machine or computer program: somewhat informal when used outside of a computer context
  4. Informal any microscopic organism, esp. one causing disease; germ or virus
  5. ☆ Informal a tiny microphone hidden to record conversation secretly
  6. ☆ Slang
    1. an enthusiast or devotee: often used in combination a shutterbug pursues photography as a hobby
    2. a particular enthusiasm or obsession
  7. ☆ Slang a small, compact automobile
  8. Slang the weight allowance (5 pounds, or 2.3 kg) granted to an apprentice jockey for one year after the riding of five winners

Etymology: prob. < bug

transitive verb bugged, bug′·ging

  1. Informal to hide a microphone in (a room, etc.), as for recording a conversation secretly
  2. Slang
    1. to annoy, bother, anger, etc.
    2. to confuse or puzzle

intransitive verb

Slang to bulge or open wide, as in amazement: said of the eyes

bug¹ Idioms

bug off

☆

Slang to stop annoying someone and leave

bug out

☆

Slang to run away; desert

bug² Definition

bug (bug)

noun

Obsolete a bugbear; hobgoblin

Etymology: ME bugge, akin to Norw dial. bugge: see big

Bug Definition

Bug (bo̵̅o̅g)

  1. river in S Ukraine, flowing southeastward into the Black Sea: 530 mi (853 km)

  2. river in W Ukraine, flowing northwestward into the Vistula near Warsaw and forming part of the border with Poland: 500 mi (805 km)

bug Synonyms

bug

n.

  1. An insect

    beetle, vermin, gnat, hemipteran; see insect, pest 1.

  2. *A microbe

    bacillus, disease germ, virus; see germ 3.

  3. *A defect

    flaw, fault, imperfection, glitch*; see blemish, defect 2.

  4. *An enthusiast

    devotee, zealot, fanatic, hobbyist; see enthusiast 1.

bug Synonyms

bug

v.

  1. *To annoy

    irritate, plague, bother, pester; see bother 2, 3, disturb 2.

  2. *To install hidden microphones

    spy on, eavesdrop, overhear, listen in on, wiretap, tap, put under surveillance; see also eavesdrop.

Bug Hacker Definition

Defined nowadays as a programming error in a software program and usually having undesirable effects, the term allegedly stems from a real insect that was found to have disturbed operations in one of the early computer systems.

See Also: Computer.

bug Telecom Definition

  1. An error in coding or logic that causes a computer software program to malfunction (i.e., perform erratically, suffer catastrophic failure (crash), or produce invalid results. Although the origin of the term bug is somewhat in dispute, folklore dates it the mid-to-late 1940s, when a moth attracted to the light given off by the vacuum tubes of one of the first digital computers, either the Mark I or the ENIAC, died and shorted one of the circuits, causing a system failure. Others attribute the term to Thomas Edison (1878). So much for the etymology of bug. As for entomology, a moth is not a bug, strictly speaking. A true bug has thickened forewings and mouth parts adapted for piercing and sucking, and is of the insect order Hemiptera, which includes aphids, cicadas, and squash bugs. Moths suck, but do not pierce, and belong to the order Lepidoptera, as do butterflies. (Note: There are two kinds of people in this world -those who just love this arcane trivia, and those who hate it. I love it, in moderation. "Arcane trivia" is somewhat tautological, which is a pedantic word for redundant. There are two types of people in this world -- those who love pedants and those who hate them. I hate them.) By the way, a bug fix is in the form of a patch, update, upgrade, or insecticide, depending on the type of bug involved. See also bug fix; Edison,Thomas Alva; entomology; etymology; and pedant
  2. An undocumented feature. (That's a joke.)

bug Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • fix: Fixed a bug with the build system under Windows.
  • catch: Maybe he just hasn't caught the bug; he needs to spend more time in Italy!

Converse of subject

bite: Once you have been bitten by the bug, you will want to get started straight away.

Adjective modifier

  • mealy: They have also come up with parasites that eat mealy bugs.
  • fixed: Fixed bug in build system that disabled thread support.
  • nasty: Or there happened to be some nasty bug " floating around " the moment they turned the machine on.
  • known: Answer: This is a known bug with the current NVIDIA control panel.
  • minor: The user should look for minor bugs in or on the system.
  • super: If doctors and nurses need to close wards to clean up the super bug they should be free to do so.

Modifies a noun

  • fix: Service Pack 1 is expected to contain purely bug fixes to VS 2005.
  • tracking: The bug has been reported to the Debian bug tracking system.
  • infestation: Look for evidence of damp, bed bug infestation and any other unwelcome flatmates!

Noun used with modifier

  • tummy: Peter: Are you gutted that Spurs were brought down by a tummy bug?
  • stomach: I have just had three days of with a stomach bug its been doing the rounds!
  • millenium: In order for the University to continue to function smoothly in the new year, such equipment must also be millenium bug proof.
  • capsid: Pests The only pest on lavender is the green capsid bug or cuckoo spit.
  • flu: I mean come on folks get real here we are talking about saving higher lifeforms not something insignificant as a flu bug.
  • bugzilla: It will be necessary to install another bugzilla module that creates bugzilla bug reports from email messages.

Preposition: in

  • pyuic3: Fixed a bug in pyuic3 when extracting Python slot code when the slot had an argument.
  • configure.py: Fixed QAssistantClient bug in configure.py for old versions of Qt.