pluck

1 of 2

verb

plucked; plucking; plucks

transitive verb

1
: to pull or pick off or out
2
a
: to remove something (such as hairs) from by or as if by plucking
pluck one's eyebrows
b
: rob, fleece
3
: to move, remove, or separate forcibly or abruptly
plucked the child from the middle of the street
4
a
: to pick, pull, or grasp at
b
: to play by sounding the strings with the fingers or a pick

intransitive verb

: to make a sharp pull or twitch
plucker noun

pluck

2 of 2

noun

1
: an act or instance of plucking or pulling
2
: the heart, liver, lungs, and trachea of a slaughtered animal especially as an item of food
3
: courageous readiness to fight or continue against odds : dogged resolution

Examples of pluck in a Sentence

Verb My sister plucked a white hair from my head. The hunter plucked the bird's feathers. plucking petals off a flower Firefighters plucked the child from the top floor of the burning building. He'd been plucked from obscurity and thrust into the national spotlight. a cat that was plucked off the city's streets last winter He plucked a stone out of the river. Noun It takes pluck to do what she did. She showed pluck in getting up on stage.
Recent Examples on the Web
Verb
Benjamin Moore Vivid Peach (025) Kara Miller plucked this juicy hue to make the pantry doors of her family's Jupiter, Florida, townhouse pop. Grace Haynes, Southern Living, 20 Mar. 2024 Afterward, cast and crew members plucked flowers to take home, and by the next day all that remained were a few blocks of green florist’s foam. Molly Fischer, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024 The Aztecs won’t be plucking another QB out of the portal. Kirk Kenney, San Diego Union-Tribune, 16 Mar. 2024 At this point, Sparks plucks each of the rooted slips off the sweet potato and plants them about a foot apart from one another in dirt that’s at least a foot deep. Alex Groves, Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2024 That title may well belong to one seagull who, in 1998, swooped down to pluck Brad Fabel’s ball from the green before taking flight and dropping it into the water. Jack Bantock, CNN, 13 Mar. 2024 The dream of being able to pluck a cell therapy off of a freezer shelf and speedily give it to cancer patients is materializing in the cancer world. Allison Deangelis, STAT, 29 Feb. 2024 In El Dorado County, fast moving water from pounding rains left a man stranded in the middle of Sweetwater Creek in El Dorado Hills early Monday forcing El Dorado Fire swift water rescuers to pluck him to safety. Darrell Smith, Sacramento Bee, 19 Feb. 2024 You get plucked out of your little bubble and whisked across the world. Andy Greene, Rolling Stone, 8 Mar. 2024
Noun
The song begins slowly as the violinist, cellist and pianist pluck strings from their instruments to create a sense of uncertainty. Kyle Melnick, Washington Post, 18 Dec. 2023 Yet the myth has endured and Perry’s successor, Greg Abbott, has not only picked up that break-away pluck in recent weeks, he’s escalated it to the point of belligerence. TIME, 1 Feb. 2024 Jacob-Perkins cut razor-sharp lines with her cello over scrubby brushstrokes of strings, hard plucks of harp and tensely bowed xylophone bars. Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2024 Backed by only a bassline and the live finger plucks of violin strings, Sada starts out unusually timid. Pitchfork, 11 Dec. 2023 The pluck creates a wave pulse that travels down the rubber band and reflects off the ends, where your fingers are. Rhett Allain, WIRED, 15 Dec. 2023 In the short prelude, light yet pungent pizzicato plucks — amid brooding low strings and an elegiac solo violin — movingly evoke Jesus’s mother’s tears without feeling too obvious. Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2023 Silkroad’s take makes every texture tangible and immediate, the voices of Giddens and violinist Mazz Swift trading off within a swirl of textures — the pluck of Wu Man’s pipa, the grain of Kojiro Umezaki’s shakuhachi flute, the timbral chorus of Haruka Fujii’s marimba, caxixi and djembe. Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2023 The film is drawn from the first part of Journey to the West, detailing the origin story of the title character, a powerful creature hatched out of a magical rock (voiced with lots of pluck by comedian Jimmy O. Yang). David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 Aug. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pluck.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Verb

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

First Known Use

Verb

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1

Noun

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of pluck was before the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near pluck

Cite this Entry

“Pluck.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pluck. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

pluck

1 of 2 verb
1
a
: to pull or pick off or out
pluck a flower
b
: to remove something (as feathers) from by or as if by plucking
pluck a chicken
2
: to move or separate forcibly : snatch
plucked the child from danger
3
: to play by pulling the strings
pluck a guitar
plucker noun

pluck

2 of 2 noun
1
: a sharp pull : tug
2

More from Merriam-Webster on pluck

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