plucked; plucking; plucks
1
: to pull or pick off or out
2
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
: to make a sharp pull or twitch
plucker
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
Rhonda Richford, WWD, 4 Mar. 2025
Leaving the ‘Touch of Gold’ Holly in the planter, pluck out the cool weather annuals to make room for their summer-friendly counterparts.
—Betsy Cribb Watson, Southern Living, 28 Feb. 2025
Philip Elliott, TIME, 25 Feb. 2025
In 2015, an exceedingly polite, marmalade-slurping fellow in a floppy felt hat and blue duffel coat arrived in theaters and offered an uplifting story about tolerance and pluck.
—Brooks Barnes, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pluck
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Verb
They were all plucked from Gerbi’s orbit of creatives.
—Rhonda Richford, WWD, 4 Mar. 2025
Leaving the ‘Touch of Gold’ Holly in the planter, pluck out the cool weather annuals to make room for their summer-friendly counterparts.
—Betsy Cribb Watson, Southern Living, 28 Feb. 2025
Noun
Yes, Republicans have been getting an earful from their districts, but those skirmishes are going to look perfectly benign compared to what a vindictive Trump could unleash for lawmakers who show too much pluck.
—Philip Elliott, TIME, 25 Feb. 2025
In 2015, an exceedingly polite, marmalade-slurping fellow in a floppy felt hat and blue duffel coat arrived in theaters and offered an uplifting story about tolerance and pluck.
—Brooks Barnes, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pluck
Articles Related to pluck
Cite this Entry
“Pluck.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pluck. Accessed 10 Mar. 2025.
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