pluck
/plʌk/ verb, noun
Forms plucks plucking plucked pluckt
- verb (transitive) To pull something sharply; to pull something out “She plucked the phone from her bag and dialled.”
- verb (transitive) To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation.
- verb (transitive, music) To play (a single string on a musical instrument) by pulling and then releasing it, such as on a guitar. “Whereas a piano strikes the string, a harpsichord plucks it.”
- verb (transitive) To remove feathers from (a bird).
- verb (transitive, now rare) To rob, steal from; to cheat or swindle (someone).
- verb (transitive) To play a string instrument pizzicato. “Plucking a bow instrument may cause a string to break.”
- verb (intransitive) To pull or twitch sharply. “to pluck at somebody's sleeve”
- verb (UK, university slang, transitive) To reject (a student) after they fail an examination for a degree.
- noun An instance of plucking or pulling sharply. “Those tiny birds are hardly worth the tedious pluck.”
- noun The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals.
- noun (informal, figurative, uncountable) Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence. “He didn't get far with the attempt, but you have to admire his pluck.”
- noun (African-American Vernacular, slang, uncountable) Cheap wine.
Synonyms
defeather audacity balls bield boldhead boldness bravehood valor braveness bravery courage courageousness daring fearlessness grit guts heart intrepidity intrepidness mood gutsiness pluckiness tweak pull off pick off hustle roll overcharge soak surcharge
Etymology
From Middle English plucken, plukken, plockien, from Old English pluccian, ploccian (“to pluck, pull away, tear”), also Old English plyċċan ("to pluck, pull, snatch; pluck with desire"), from Proto-West Germanic *plukkōn, from Proto-Germanic *plukkōną, *plukkijaną (“to pluck”), of uncertain and disputed origin.
Perhaps related to Old English pullian (“to pull, draw; pluck off; snatch”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian plukje (“to pluck”), West Frisian plôkje (“to pick, pluck”), Dutch plukken (“to pluck”), Limburgish plógte (“to pluck”), Low German plukken (“to pluck”), German pflücken (“to pluck, pick”), Danish and Norwegian plukke (“to pick”), Swedish plocka (“to pick, pluck, cull”), Icelandic plokka, plukka (“to pluck, pull”). More at pull.
An alternative etymology suggests Proto-Germanic *plukkōną, *plukkijaną may have been borrowed from an assumed Vulgar Latin *pilūc(i)cāre, a derivative of Latin pilāre (“deprive of hair, make bald, depilate”), from pilus (“hair”). The Oxford English Dictionary, however, finds difficulties with this and cites gaps in historical evidence.
The noun sense of "heart, liver, and lights of an animal" comes from it being plucked out of the carcass after the animal is killed; the sense of "fortitude, boldness" derives from this meaning, originally being a boxing slang denoting a prize-ring, with semantic development from "heart", the symbol of courage, to "fortitude, boldness".
Webster’s 1913
- verb To pull; to draw.
- verb Especially, to pull with sudden force or effort, or to pull off or out from something, with a twitch; to twitch; also, to gather, to pick; as, to pluck feathers from a fowl; to pluck hair or wool from a skin; to pluck grapes.
- verb To make a motion of pulling or twitching; --usually with at; as, to pluck at one's gown.
- noun The act of plucking; a pull; a twitch.
Etymology [Prob. so called as being plucked out after the animal is killed; or cf. Gael. & Ir. pluc a lump, a knot, a bunch.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pluck”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details