pluck
/plʌk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.13 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To play (a single string on a musical instrument) by pulling and then releasing it, such as on a guitar.
Transitive verb
verb
To reject (a student) after they fail an examination for a degree.
British usage; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "She plucked the phone from her bag and dialled."
- "The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile was clearly outlined."
- ""I want to bring that date forward. You only get one shot at this, and if I pluck a date from the air, you will judge me by it. So, until I am certain, I'm sticking with the previous date. [...]."
- "First of all, he says a lot of the promotions from the ranks are promotions of the sons of officers who have gone wrong , or got "plucked," or what not, and who are brought up again along another road for commissioned rank."
- "The hardest mission fell to the tanker aircraft, decidedly unglamorous birds, mainly flown by Air Force Reserve crews—most of them plucked from their airline jobs—so rapidly called into service that FAA rules for crew rest time on domestic airlines were quietly violated for the next several weeks."
- "Whereas a piano strikes the string, a harpsichord plucks it."
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".
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: plucken, pluccian, *plukkōn, *plukkōną
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
crow to pluck
ear plucking
have a crow to pluck
pluck-buffet
pluck out
pluck up
the old woman is plucking her goose