tucket

noun

tuck·​et ˈtə-kət 

: a fanfare on a trumpet

Did you know?

Tucket can be found most notably in the stage directions of several of William Shakespeare's plays. In King Lear, for example, a tucket sounds to alert the Earl of Gloucester of the arrival of the Duke of Cornwall (Act II, Scene i). The word tucket likely derives from the obsolete English verb tuk, meaning "to beat the drum" or "to sound the trumpet." These days, the word fanfare itself refers to a sounding of trumpets made, for example, in celebration or to alert one of another's arrival. The presence of fanfare might be the reason that tucket is rarely used in contemporary English.

Word History

Etymology

probably from obsolete English tuk to beat the drum, sound the trumpet

First Known Use

1593, in the meaning defined above

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