From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishplug something ↔ in phrasal verbTEEto connect a piece of electrical equipment to the main supply of electricity, or to another piece of electrical equipment ‘Is your printer working?’ ‘Wait a minute – it’s not plugged in.’ → plug→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
plug in• All you have to do is plug it in.• Marion filled the kettle and plugged it in.• Imagine trying to wire a plug while sitting in a washing machine, on its final spin cycle.• This isn't really an electric car -- you don't have to plug it in, ever.• The grocer had a grinder somewhere, and his wife unearthed it, dusted it down and plugged it in for me.• Milken plugged the hole in the system.• Co., Xilinx Inc. and Federal National Mortgage Association plugged the leak in the U.• They were retained in the fax modem's memory and as soon as I plugged it in, tried to send them.plug-inˈplug-in1 adjective [only before noun] able to be connected to the electricity supply, or to another piece of electrical equipment a plug-in microphoneExamples from the Corpus
plug-in• Mrs Oram bought the plug-in alarm from a baby shop in Cardiff which has since closed.• Lifestreams would find your bills, and a plug-in application could crunch the data to produce a pattern.• There's limited expansion potential in the plug-in card area, with just two slots available.• Nowadays, computers are loaded with memory, bulging disk drives and other plug-in devices.• There was a plug-in kettle, an electric ring for cooking on, and a Gideon's bible, for solace.• The essence of these terminals can be changed using a plug-in personality module.• All it requires is a Palm Pilot type device with a plug-in wireless network card.plug-inplug-in2, plugin /ˈplʌɡɪn/ noun [countable] technical a piece of computer software that can be used in addition to existing software in order to make particular programs work properlyExamples from the Corpus
plug-in• To understand what a plug-in is, try thinking of your browser as a vacuum cleaner.• A plug-in is an auxiliary program that works alongside your browser.• A different search might locate investments in your current portfolio, and another plug-in could rate their performance.• Overall, this is a really good plug-in and a must-have for movie fans on the Net.From Longman Business Dictionaryplug something → in phrasal verb [transitive] to connect a piece of electrical equipment to the main supply of electricity, or to another piece of electrical equipment → plug→ See Verb tableplug-inˈplug-in noun [countable]COMPUTING a piece of software that can be used in addition to existing software in order to make particular programs work properly 