c. 1300 (mid-13c. in surnames), "to move or try to move forcibly by pulling, to drag forcibly or with effort," from Old English pullian "to pluck off (wool), to draw out," a word of unknown origin, perhaps related to Low German pulen "remove the shell or husk," Frisian pûlje "to shell, husk," Middle Dutch polen "to peel, strip," Icelandic pula "work hard." Related: Pulled; pulling.

From early 14c. as "to pick, pull off, gather by hand" (fruit, flowers, berries, leaves, petals, etc.); mid-14c. as "to extract, uproot" (of teeth, weeds, etc.).

Sense of "to draw (to oneself), attract" is from c. 1400; sense of "to pluck at with the fingers" is from c. 1400; meaning "tear to pieces" is mid-15c. By late 16c. it had replaced draw (v.) in these senses. From mid-14c. as "to deprive (someone of something)."

Common in slang terms 19c.-20c.; Bartlett (1859) has to pull foot "walk fast; run;" pull it "to run." To pull (someone's) chain in the figurative sense is from 1974, perhaps on the notion of a captive animal; the expression was also used for "to contact" (someone), on the notion of the chain that operates a signaling mechanism. To pull (someone's) leg is from 1882, perhaps on notion of "playfully tripping" (compare pull the long bow "exaggerate," 1830, and pulling someone's leg also sometimes was described as a way to awaken a sleeping person in a railway compartment, ship's berth, etc.). Thornton's "American Glossary" (1912) has pull (n.) "a jest" (to have a pull at (someone)), which it identifies as "local" and illustrates with an example from the Massachusetts Spy of May 21, 1817, which identifies it as "a Georgian phrase."

To pull (one's) punches is from 1920 in pugilism, from 1921 figuratively. To pull in "arrive" (1892) and pull out "depart" (1868) are from the railroads. To pull for someone or something, "exert influence or root for" is by 1903.

To pull (something) off "accomplish, succeed at" is originally in sporting, "to win the prize money" (1870). To pull (something) on (someone) is from 1916; to pull (something) out of one's ass is Army slang from 1970s. To pull rank is from 1919; to pull the rug from under (someone) figuratively is from 1946.

also boot-strap, tab or loop at the back of the top of a men's boot, which the wearer hooked a finger through to pull the boots on, 1870, from boot (n.1) + strap (n.).

To pull (oneself) up by (one's) bootstraps, by 1871, was used figuratively of an impossible task (among the "practical questions" at the end of chapter one of Steele's "Popular Physics" schoolbook (1888) is, "30. Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his boot-straps?"). But it also is used to suggest "better oneself by rigorous, unaided effort." The meaning "fixed sequence of instructions to load the operating system of a computer" (1953) is from the notion of the first-loaded program pulling itself (and the rest) up by the bootstrap. It was used earlier of electrical circuits (1946).

mid-14c., in reference to some part of a harness;" c. 1500 as "act of pulling or dragging," from tug (v.). Meaning "small, powerful vessel for towing other vessels" is recorded from 1817. Phrase tug of war (1670s) was originally figurative, "the decisive contest, the real struggle," from the noun in the sense "supreme effort, strenuous contest of forces" (1650s). As an actual athletic event, from 1876.

"place for parking automobiles," 1926, British English, from car (n.) + park (n.).

Oh the torn up ticket stubs

From a hundred thousand mugs

Now washed away with dead dreams in the rain;

And the car-park's going up

And they're pulling down the pubs

And it's just another bloody rainy day

[The Pogues, "White City," 1989]

c. 1600, a kind of sea monster, part horse and part dolphin or fish, often pictured pulling Neptune's chariot, from Late Latin hippocampus, from Greek hippokampos, from hippos "horse" (from PIE root *ekwo- "horse") + kampos "a sea monster," which is perhaps related to kampe "caterpillar." Used from 1570s as a name of a type of fish (the seahorse); of a part of the brain from 1706, on supposed resemblance to the fish.

c. 1300, reinen, "tie (a horse), tether," a sense now obsolete, from rein (n.). From early 15c. as "to pull on the bridle with the reins," to restrain or guide the horse, hence the figurative extension to "put a check on, restrain, control," recorded by 1580s. Related: Reined; reining. To rein up "halt" (1550s) is an image of pulling up on the reins to make a horse halt or back.

1975, transitive, "start up (a computer) by causing an operating system to load in the memory," from bootstrap (v.), a 1958 derived verb from bootstrap (n.) in the sense of "fixed sequence of instructions to load the operating system of a computer" (1953).

This is from the notion of the first-loaded program pulling itself (and the rest) up by the bootstrap. The intransitive use, of a computer operating system, is from 1983. Related: Booted; booting.

c. 1400, "act of pulling," from draw (v.). Meaning "game or contest that ends without a winner," is attested first in drawn match (1610s), but the signification is uncertain origin; some speculate it is from withdraw. Hence, as a verb, "to leave (a game, etc.) undecided," from 1837.

Colloquial sense of "anything that can draw a crowd" is from 1881 (from the verb in the related sense). 

also dumbbell, "one of a pair of weighted bars used for exercise," by 1785, earlier (from 1711), according to OED, an apparatus like that used to ring a church bell, but without the bell (hence dumb); used for physical exercise but sometimes also to practice ringing changes. See dumb (adj.) + bell (n.). If this is right, the word must have been transferred; earlier 18c. references make mention of "pulling" or "ringing" dumb-bells and note that it can be done only indoors. The following is a footnote to the 1903 reprint of Joseph Strutt's 1801 "The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England":

The origin of the term is somewhat curious. Dumb-bells take their name by analogy, as was pointed out in Notes and Queries in 1861, "from a machine used for exercise, consisting of a rough, heavy, wooden flywheel with a rope passing through and round a spindle ... and set in motion like a church bell." This statement, however, does not sufficiently explain the transference of such a name to the short bar and rounded lead or iron ends of a hand dumb-bell. This difficulty was explained by the late Chancellor Ferguson in a paper read before the Archaeological Institute in 1895, wherein a dumb-bell apparatus, now at Lord Sackville's seat at Knowle, was described and illustrated. The roller round which the rope winds and unwinds has four iron arms, each of which has a leaden poise or ball at the end, just like the end of an ordinary hand dumb-bell. This Knowle example is fixed in an attic and the rope passed through to a gallery beneath. Anyone pulling the rope would get much the same exercise as in pulling a bell rope in a church tower, but without annoying his neighbours by the noise. There used to be a similar apparatus at New College, Oxford.

Figurative sense of "blockhead, stupid person" attested by 1918, American English college slang.