pluck Meaning & Definition

Synonyms of Pluck

Antonyms of Pluck

Pluck in a Sentence

She plucked the phone from her bag and dialled.

Whereas a piano strikes the string, a harpsichord plucks it.

Plucking a bow instrument may cause a string to break.

to pluck at somebody's sleeve

Those tiny birds are hardly worth the tedious pluck.

He didn't get far with the attempt, but you have to admire his pluck.

The horny highwayman plucked his victims to their underwear, or attractive ones all the way.

plucking feathers

pluck a chicken

pluck one's eyebrows

plucked the child from the middle of the street

plucked the map down from the wall

plucking a banjo

It took pluck to speak before such a tough crowd.

a quick pluck pulled the hair right out

it takes pluck to survive a crippling car accident and still go on to become successful

the Internet opened up a whole new medium for con artists to pluck the gullible

pluck a chicken / pluck one's eyebrows

Word Forms & Grammar

plucked

pluck·ing

plucks

pluck·er noun

pluck

plucker

pluckers

plucking

pluck (third-person singular simple present plucks, present participle plucking, simple past and past participle plucked or (obsolete) pluckt)

pluck (countable and uncountable, plural plucks)

Words That Rhyme With Pluck

Origin of Pluck

Origin 1: Middle English, from Old English pluccian; akin to Middle High German pflücken to pluck

Origin 2: 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.

Origin 3: 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.

Origin 4: 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.[1]

Origin 5: 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".

First Known Use

before 12th centuryt

15th century