pluck

views updated May 29 2018

pluck / plək/ • v. [tr.] take hold of (something) and quickly remove it from its place; pick: she plucked a blade of grass he plucked a tape from the shelf. ∎  catch hold of and pull quickly: she plucked his sleeve | [intr.] brambles plucked at her jeans. ∎  quickly or suddenly remove someone from a dangerous or unpleasant situation: the baby was plucked from a grim foster home. ∎  pull the feathers from (a bird's carcass) to prepare it for cooking. ∎  pull some of the hairs from (one's eyebrows) to make them look neater. ∎  sound (a musical instrument or its strings) with one's finger or a plectrum. ∎  select for a move to a new job or position: many managers were plucked from the company's overseas operations.• n. spirited and determined courage; guts. ∎  the heart, liver, and lungs of an animal as food.PHRASAL VERBS: pluck up couragesee courage.DERIVATIVES: pluck·er n. [usu. in comb.] a goose-plucker.

pluck

views updated Jun 08 2018

pluck
A. pull off, draw forcibly XIV;

B. reject (a candidate) in an examination XVIII. Late OE. ploccian, pluccian, corr. to MLG. plucken, MDu. plocken, ON. plokka, plukka :- Gmc. *plukkōn, *-ōjan, a parallel form with mutation *plukkjan being repr. by OE. *plyċċan (ME. plicchen), (M)Du. plukken, (M)HG. pflücken; prob. all to be referred to Rom. *piluccāre, whence OF. peluchier, etc., obscurely f. L. pīlus hair, PILE3. The origin of sense B is obscure.
Hence pluck sb. act of plucking XV; heart, liver, and lungs of a beast, as being ‘plucked’ out of the carcass XVII; (orig. pugilistic slang) ‘heart’, courage, ‘guts’; cf pluck up heart, etc. XVIII.

Pluck

views updated May 11 2018

Pluck

of shawmers: a company of shawm playersBk. of St. Albans, 1486; (a shawm is a medieval stringed musical instrument).

Examples : shawmer, a player of the shawm, 1505; a flourish of shawms, 1641.

pluck

views updated Jun 11 2018

pluck spirited and determined courage; recorded as a term in boxing from the 18th century, and deriving from the literal sense of the word ‘the heart, liver, and lungs of an animal’.

pluck

views updated May 21 2018

pluck Butchers' term for heart, liver, and lungs of an animal.

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