snug, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

snug n.

[SE snug, comfortable, cosy]

1. (also snuggery) the bar-parlour of a public house or inn; also attrib.

c.1820		‘Railroad to Hell’ in C. Hindley Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 33: And here you see women with bottles and jugs, / Roll into these taverns and dram-drinking snugs, / As brazen as brass to get an odd glass.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 395: How many jovial nights have I passed and jolly fellows have I met in the snug sanctum sanctorum! a little crib, as the flashmongers would call it, with an entrance through the bar, and into which none were ever permitted to enter without a formal introduction and the gracious permission of the hostess.
1827		W. Clarke Every Night Book xii: As Napoleon said to Barry O’Meara [...] so do we to ye from our snuggery.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 173: There was a public-house with a side snuggery labelled ‘For gentlemen only’.
1888		R. Barnett Police Sergeant C 21 58: No time elapsed before Robert Power and his opportune acquaintance were standing in the ‘snug’ or little parlour of the Lord Nelson.
1914		Joyce ‘Counterparts’ Dubliners (1956) 86: He put his penny on the counter and [...] retreated out of the snug as furtively as he had entered it.
1925		S. O’Casey Juno and the Paycock Act I: He’s wherever Joxer Daly is – dhrinkin’ in some snug or another.
1944		J. Cary Horse’s Mouth (1948) 358: She was listening towards the snug door.
1953		H. Tracy Mind You, I’ve Said Nothing (1961) 109: We went into a tiny snug the size of a horse-box with a wooden bench running round the wooden walls.
1967		M. Frayn Towards the End of Morning (2000) 143: The old publican went off his head and shut himself up in the snug with an ex-War Department Verey pistol.
1975		A. Bleasdale Scully 71: I wasn’t drinking with the Pensioners like I usually do. I’d just walked in the Snug when who do I meet?
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 8: Do you want to say that a bit louder [...] I think some people in the snug didn’t get all that.
1994		(con. 1970s) G. Byrne Pictures in my Head 65: Cigarette smoke fogs the snug of Mooney’s, Crumlin.
2005		Guardian G2 5 May 3: The Tories were [...] eavesdropping on Basil Fawlty in the snug and turning his pet peeves into electoral policy.

2. (US Und.) a small revolver that can be concealed easily.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

bit of snug (n.)

the vagina, in the context of sexual intercourse; usu. as give a bit of snug for a bit of stiff v., to have sexual intercourse (cf. bit of stiff under stiff n.¹).

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues III 208/2: To enjoy, procure, or confer the sexual favour [...] Of women only [...] to give [...] a bit of snug for a bit of stiff.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 76: Contenter. To copulate; ‘to give a bit of snug for a bit of stiff’.