Word Direct Answers

What does "pluck" mean?

Pluck: To strip of, or as of, feathers; as, to pluck a fowl. They which pass by the way do pluck her. Ps. lxxx.

Additional senses

  1. 2.(Eng. Universities) To reject at an examination for degrees. C. Bronté. To pluck away, to pull away, or to separate by pulling; to tear away. -- To pluck down, to pull down; to demolish; to reduce to a lower state. -- to pluck off, to pull or tear off; as, to pluck off the skin. -- to pluck up. (a) To tear up by the roots or from the foundation; to eradicate; to exterminate; to destroy; as, to pluck up a plant; to pluk up a nation. Jer. xii.
  2. 3.(b) To gather up; to summon; as, to pluck up courage.
  3. 4.To make a motion of pulling or twitching; -- usually with at; as, to pluck at one's gown.
  4. 5.The act of plucking; a pull; a twitch.
  5. 6.Etym: [Prob. so called as being plucked out after the animal is killed; or cf. Gael. & Ir. pluc a lump, a knot, a bunch.] The heart, liver, and lights of an animal.
  6. 7.Spirit; courage; indomitable resolution; fortitude. Decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck. Thackeray.
  7. 8.The act of plucking, or the state of being plucked, at college. See Pluck, v. t., 4.
  8. 9.(Zoöl.) The lyrie. [Prov. Eng.]

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