The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pluck \Pluck\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Plucked; p. pr. & vb. n. Plucking.] [AS. pluccian; akin to LG. & D. plukken, G. pfl["u]cken, Icel. plokka, plukka, Dan. plukke, Sw. plocka. ?27.]
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To pull; to draw.
Its own nature . . . plucks on its own dissolution.
--Je?. Taylor. -
Especially, to pull with sudden force or effort, or to pull off or out from something, with a twitch; to twitch; also, to gather, to pick; as, to pluck feathers from a fowl; to pluck hair or wool from a skin; to pluck grapes.
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude.
--Milton.E'en children followed, with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.
--Goldsmith. -
To strip of, or as of, feathers; as, to pluck a fowl.
They which pass by the way do pluck her.
--Ps. lxxx.?2. -
(Eng. Universities) To reject at an examination for degrees. --C. Bront['e]. 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.
To tear up by the roots or from the foundation; to eradicate; to exterminate; to destroy; as, to pluck up a plant; to pluck up a nation.
--Jer. xii. 17.To gather up; to summon; as, to pluck up courage.
Plucked \Plucked\, a. Having courage and spirit. [R.]
Wiktionary
1 (''of something with feathers, hair etc.'') Having had these items removed by plucking. 2 (context of the strings of an instrument English) played by plucking. 3 Having courage and spirit; plucky. v
(en-past of: pluck)
WordNet
adj. of a stringed instrument; sounded with the fingers or a plectrum [ant: bowed]
having the feathers removed, as from a pelt or a fowl; "a plucked chicken"; "an unfeathered goose"
Usage examples of "plucked".
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.
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.
Her ascendancy over the King was attributed to the enchantments and experiments of a Dominican friar, learned in many a cantrip and cabala, whom she entertained in her house, and who had fashioned two pictures of Edward and Alive which, when suffumigated with the incense of mysterious herbs and gums, mandrakes, sweet calamus, caryophylleae, storax, benzoin, and other plants plucked beneath the full moon what time Venus was in ascendant, caused the old King to dote upon this lovely concubine.
The tumult of luxury entertained him: the blasts of chypre from the birds, the hissing farthingales and Hainault lace, the net stockings and gem stuck pumps, the headdresses starched and spangled and meshed and fluted, the plucked eyebrows and frizzled hair, the lynx, genet and Calabrian sable stinking in the wet, the gauzy cache-nez drawn over nose and chin in the gardens and referred to in the careless vulgarity of the mode as coffins a roupies.