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
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

of shawmers: a company of shawm players—Bk. 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 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 Butchers' term for heart, liver, and lungs of an animal.