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What is "pluck"

Crossword clues for pluck

pluck
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pluck
I.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
be plucked from obscurity (=to take someone or something that is not known about and make them well-known)
▪ The actress has been plucked from obscurity to become the new Bond girl.
pluck up/screw up the courage to do sth (=try to find it)
▪ He was trying to pluck up the courage to end their relationship.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
off
▪ It turned Lucifer's skin into black scales and plucked off his wings.
▪ Matt pulled him into the room, plucked off his glasses and shoved him on to the bed.
▪ One of the theories about the abandoned ship Marie Celeste is that the crew were plucked off by a hungry kraken.
▪ He was immediately plucked off and we plunged downwards, drowning in a tidal wave of powder snow.
out
▪ Benjamin then dug his hand into the empty manger and plucked out the remains of the horse's feed.
▪ He soon fell asleep, but woke with a start when his grandmother plucked out a hair.
▪ Dinah plucked out her handkerchief again, dabbed at her eyes and cleared her nose.
▪ Feeling an itch under her waistband, Fourth Aunt reached down and plucked out something fat and meaty.
▪ The Keeper of the Shrine of Asuryan plucked out his eyes but even this did not stop the terrible visions.
▪ In fact, they seemed very much like characters plucked out of a novel.
▪ Blackbirds have been riffling through the feather moss, plucking out chunks and scattering it about like bright green mattress stuffing.
▪ A Medic plucked out a needle-pistol and fired with splendid accuracy at Bjortson's muscle-corded neck.
up
▪ But why not pluck up the courage to do what you've always wanted?
▪ She plucked up the nerve to ask him.
▪ A year later, I plucked up my courage and became pregnant once more.
▪ I think you should pluck up the courage to invite him out.
▪ After a while, too, some of the more literary residents of Princeton plucked up the courage to speak to him.
▪ Kent suspected that if the fellow ever did pluck up courage to call he would be disappointed.
▪ On three occasions he had plucked up the courage to call her, but had never had a reply.
▪ Eventually I plucked up courage and booked a ticket to Amsterdam with the sole purpose of getting laid.
■ NOUN
air
▪ She senses rather than sees a pass, plucking it from the air even as she looks the other way.
▪ Conversations can and have been plucked from the air by eavesdroppers with scanners.
courage
▪ But why not pluck up the courage to do what you've always wanted?
▪ A year later, I plucked up my courage and became pregnant once more.
▪ I think you should pluck up the courage to invite him out.
▪ After a while, too, some of the more literary residents of Princeton plucked up the courage to speak to him.
▪ Kent suspected that if the fellow ever did pluck up courage to call he would be disappointed.
▪ On three occasions he had plucked up the courage to call her, but had never had a reply.
▪ Eventually I plucked up courage and booked a ticket to Amsterdam with the sole purpose of getting laid.
▪ Nelly begged me not to leave her, and plucking up courage I stayed.
eyebrow
▪ She could even pluck her eyebrows!
▪ She did not even like to pluck her eyebrows in his presence.
▪ She used lipstick and had plucked eyebrows and wore bright hats.
▪ Because you can lose your mind staying in two rooms, and so I fix my hair and pluck my eyebrows.
safety
▪ Mary O'Callaghan was plucked to safety by firefighters from her first-floor flat on the High Street on Saturday morning.
▪ Firemen waded through waist-high water to pluck 50 more to safety.
▪ The scalding flood swamped hundreds of homes and many people were plucked to safety by helicopter.
■ VERB
reach
▪ On impulse, Guy reached up and plucked the bud, avoiding the surrounding thorns.
▪ Feeling an itch under her waistband, Fourth Aunt reached down and plucked out something fat and meaty.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Dinah plucked out her handkerchief again, dabbed at her eyes and cleared her nose.
▪ Gently I reach to the side and pluck an apple off the tree, then drop it.
▪ She plucked the green scarf from the throat of her raincoat, spread it on top of the heap of boulders.
▪ She did not even like to pluck her eyebrows in his presence.
▪ She senses rather than sees a pass, plucking it from the air even as she looks the other way.
▪ They are the cache that geologists seek, and must be carefully plucked from the ocean bed.
▪ They finished their drinks and as they got up from the table Fernando plucked a sprig of jasmine from the pergola.
▪ When the Guardian arrived half an hour later, she plucked it from the letter-box with impatient hands.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It takes a lot of pluck to do what he's done.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ All pluck and pomp, it rang throughout the hall in dulcet tones as never before.
▪ But luck was replaced by pluck and you won't see a finer display of it than last night.
▪ But, while Owens was a symbol of pluck during the flood, she also was a symbol of the flood.
▪ Collier and Leighton gush a bit too much for my taste, as though anyone with enough pluck can publish a book.
▪ Even Isay unbent a little, and grinned at a raven-haired wench when she made a lewd pluck at his staff.
▪ Like the relievers, hitters Steve Finley and Greg Vaughn showed pluck.
▪ Reality's raw challenge, especially if it engaged muscle and pluck, was his more favoured companion.
▪ The focus is on gallantry, derring-do, honest pluck.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
pluck

Lyrie \Ly"rie\ (l[imac]"r[i^]), n. [Icel. hl[=y]ri a sort of fish.] (Zo["o]l.) A European fish ( Peristethus cataphractum), having the body covered with bony plates, and having three spines projecting in front of the nose; -- called also noble, pluck, pogge, sea poacher, and armed bullhead.

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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pluck

c.1400, "act of plucking," from pluck (v.). Meaning "courage, boldness" (1785), originally in pugilism slang, is a figurative use from earlier meaning "heart, viscera" (1610s) as that which is "plucked" from slaughtered livestock. Perhaps influenced by figurative use of the verb in pluck up (one's courage, etc.), attested from c.1300.

pluck

late Old English ploccian, pluccian "pull off, cull," from West Germanic *plokken (cognates: Middle Low German plucken, Middle Dutch plocken, Dutch plukken, Flemish plokken, German pflücken), perhaps from Vulgar Latin *piluccare (source of Old French peluchier, late 12c.; Italian piluccare), a frequentative, ultimately from Latin pilare "pull out hair," from pilus "hair" (see pile (n.3)). But despite the similarities, OED finds difficulties with this and cites gaps in historical evidence. Related: Plucked; plucking.\n To pluck a rose, an expression said to be used by women for going to the necessary house, which in the country usually stands in the garden. [F. Grose, "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1785]This euphemistic use is attested from 1610s. To pluck up "summon up" is from c.1300.

Wiktionary
pluck

n. 1 An instance of plucking 2 The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals. 3 Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence. vb. 1 (lb en transitive) To pull something sharply; to pull something out 2 (lb en transitive music) To gently play a single string, e.g. on a guitar, violin etc. 3 (lb en transitive) To remove feathers from a bird. 4 (lb en transitive) To rob, fleece, steal forcibly 5 (lb en transitive) To play a string instrument pizzicato 6 (lb en intransitive) To pull or twitch sharply. 7 (lb en UK universities) To reject at an examination for degrees.

Related phrases:
WordNet
pluck

  1. n. the trait of showing courage and determination in spite of possible loss or injury [syn: gutsiness, pluckiness] [ant: gutlessness]

  2. the act of pulling and releasing a taut cord

  3. v. pull or pull out sharply; "pluck the flowers off the bush" [syn: tweak, pull off, pick off]

  4. sell something to or obtain something from by energetic and especially underhanded activity [syn: hustle, roll]

  5. rip off; ask an unreasonable price [syn: overcharge, soak, surcharge, gazump, fleece, plume, rob, hook] [ant: undercharge]

  6. pull lightly but sharply with a plucking motion; "he plucked the strings of his mandolin" [syn: plunk, pick]

  7. strip of feathers; "pull a chicken"; "pluck the capon" [syn: pull, tear, deplume, deplumate, displume]

  8. look for and gather; "pick mushrooms"; "pick flowers" [syn: pick, cull]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Pluck
Pluck (card game)

Pluck is a trick-taking playing card game for four players (two teams of two). The game is played similar to Spades and Hearts. A standard deck of playing cards is dealt out (excluding jokers) evenly among the players. The objective is to get ten points (called plucks) before the other team.

Pluck (software)

Pluck, also known as pluck-cms, is an open source content management system, written in the PHP scripting language. It allows for webpage creation for users with little or no programming experience, and, unlike most content management systems, does not use a database to store its data. Pluck also includes a module system, which allows developers to integrate custom functionality into the system.

Pluck (company)

Pluck was an American Internet company based in Austin, Texas, that ran a website since 2005 that offered an RSS reader. The company was acquired by Demand Media on March 3, 2008 for US$75 million in cash.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "pluck".

She tried to ignore the dizzying perspective plucking at her peripheral vision over the low sides of the pod and concentrated instead on the stress and acceleration vectors graphically represented on her screen.

Without care or consideration of ahimsa, Danlo reached up to the lowest branch of the tree above the bench, and he plucked off a single leaf.

With a deft movement, she plucked the skirt off Alise and slid it back on, dropping it down over her head.

But to beings like the Ambassadress the occasional parasite plucked from their own plumage is like a salted peanut is to us.

Her mother was spinning, her aunt Amice plucked flower petals for a perfume, and her aunt Felice played her harp.

Jane reached around Amy to pluck a locket on a blue ribbon off the dressing table.

She gave her full attention to the Araba handsome, dark-skinned man with a full mustache but a hairless chin, which he plucked meticulously every evening, to the wincing fascination of her men.

It was as if I had been plucked from an almost paradisial world and dropped into an alternative universe where much was the same, but everything was tinged by horror and nightmare.

She could not sit like a duck on a pond all night, so Ava carefully began to persuade Lady Purnam to have her new barouche plucked from the stream of carriages outside to drive Ava home.

After a minute or so of such foolery, Miles plucked the four axolotls out and handed them to Dooly, who was rather at a loss over what to do with them.

These and sundry other sins having duly been confessed, the badger bade the fox chastise himself with a switch plucked from the hedge, lay it down in the road, jump over it thrice, and then meekly kiss that rod in token of obedience.

I would have plucked the fruit, she clasped me to her arms, crossed her legs, and began to weep bitterly.

She plucked her tiny microphone off her bikini top and tossed it into the swimming pool.

Charlie Weller, who was allowed to bivouac with the veterans because they liked him, plucked a head of soaking wet rye and shook his head sadly.

Renunciates are either plucked chickens who cannot make up their minds, or bossy roosters in skirts.