chuck
Noun pluralchucks
Formschucks, chucking, chucked
Pluralchucks
- 1
- 2To throw away or get rid of something that is no longer wanted.
Those leftovers have been in the fridge for a week, so you might as well chuck them.
She chucked out a whole box of old letters when she moved.
Similartoss, ditch, dump, discard, trash
Note
The discarding sense still carries the throw inside it. In Sheridan Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard (1863) a man balances a little roll in his palm with thoughts of chucking it from him, halfway between tossing and getting rid. Today the throw is usually figurative, and chuck out says the same thing as chuck alone: you chuck old letters, or chuck them out.
- 3Meat that comes from the shoulder of a cow or another animal.
Ask the butcher for three pounds of chuck, trimmed and cut into cubes for the chili.
Burgers made with ground chuck stay juicier than ones made from leaner cuts.
Note
A cut on the butcher's chart before it is a word in the kitchen: the chuck is a large section of the forequarter, so large that the arm chucks alone make up more than half of a beef forequarter, and veal has chucks too. Butchers count it; cooks buy it as uncountable meat, three pounds of chuck or ground chuck, sold boneless in flat chunks or rolled and tied.
- 4A mechanical device that holds an object firmly in place, for instance gripping the bit in a drill or grinder that spins at high speed.
Tighten the chuck firmly, or the bit can slip loose when the drill is under load.
The machinist clamped the metal rod in the lathe's chuck before starting the cut.
Note
The grip can hold either the tool or the work: on a drill the chuck holds the bit, while on a lathe or grinder it holds the piece being shaped. Grinders use magnetic chucks, and Colvin and Stanley's American Machinist Grinding Book (1912) warns that steel can keep some of the magnetism, which makes small work hard to get off. The name has since spread to the clamps of fiber-optic splicers.
- 5
- 6
- 7To bring food from the stomach back up through the mouth.
Three rides on the roller coaster and he was ready to chuck.
Halfway through the bus trip, the kid next to me chucked all over the floor.
Similarvomit, puke, barf, hurl, spew
Note
The slang runs parallel to throw up: a word for throwing doubles as a word for being sick. Used this way it takes no object (he chucked, she was ready to chuck), and that is what tells it apart from the ordinary throwing verb, where something is always thrown. It shares the blunt register of the noun.
- 8To touch or tap someone gently, typically under the chin.
He leaned down to chuck the toddler under the chin before heading out the door.
The vet chucked the nervous puppy under the chin to calm it down.
Note
The verb has a flirtatious past as well as a fond one. In Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal (1777) a wife reminds her husband of their courtship, when he would walk with her under the elms, boast of his youth, and chuck her under the chin. The person tapped is the object, and under the chin says where: one chucks someone under the chin.
- 9A gentle touch or tap, typically under a person's chin.
He gave his little sister a teasing chuck under the chin.
A friendly chuck under the chin was the coach's way of saying good job.
Note
The tap usually goes under the chin, and an affectionate chuck under the chin is the set phrase. The word shares its origin with the throwing verb and its relatives: an earlier chock, probably imitative, perhaps linked to Middle English chokken, "to thrust", and Middle Dutch schocken, "to bump, shake", which makes it a cousin of shock.
- 10Abbreviation of woodchuck.
A chuck has been raiding the vegetable garden, leaving half-eaten beans behind.
Hunters in the valley spend summer evenings watching the hayfields for a chuck to pop up.
Note
The short name keeps the animal and the grammar of woodchuck, a Northern US name for a large ground squirrel, one of the marmots: one chuck, two chucks. Sylvia Bashline's "Woodchucks Are Tablefare Too" in Field & Stream (1976) uses it freely, noting that chucks are plentiful and that farmers are glad to have the diggers kept in check.
- 11To give something up or quit doing it.
After two years of law school, he chucked it all to become a carpenter.
"When he got religion old Joe stuck every penny away in the Savings Bank, and when he chucked religion he'd draw out the lot and go on a bender that landed him in the horrors, like as not."
1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of ConsentSimilarquit, abandon, drop, ditch
Note
Quitting with a shrug: the word has a casual, somewhat old-fashioned ring, and it always takes the thing given up as its object. In Norman Lindsay's Age of Consent (1938), old Joe banks every penny when he gets religion and goes on a bender when he chucks it. For a level tone, give up or quit is the safer choice.
- 12An act or bout of vomiting.
One look at the waves and he was hanging over the rail having a chuck.
A quick chuck in the bathroom, and she was ready to dance again.
Note
This is blunt slang: fine among friends, out of place in polite company or at the doctor's, where vomiting or being sick is the safer choice. The noun names a single bout, so it can be counted like any other event, and the verb carries the same rough register.
- 13A friend or close acquaintance, or an affectionate name used when speaking to someone.
Don't worry about the mess, chuck, I'll clean it up.
Watch your step on that ice, chuck.
Similarlove, dear, pet, darling
Note
An endearment with a long life: Shakespeare's Othello (c. 1603–1604) has "Pray, chuck, come hither," and "Are you all right, chuck?" is still heard. It is spoken to someone rather than about them, and it is warm and casual, so it suits family and friends rather than strangers or formal settings. It shares the hen's-cluck origin of the old word for a hen.
- 14In cricket, a delivery thrown rather than bowled, or the incorrect bowling action that produces it.
The umpire called the delivery a chuck and signaled a no-ball.
Slow-motion replays suggested that his faster ball was a chuck, with the elbow straightening at release.
Similarthrow
Note
Cricket draws a hard line between bowling and throwing, and a chuck is a ball that crosses it. Calling a delivery a chuck is no casual remark: it questions whether the bowler's action is legal at all, and an umpire who agrees calls a no-ball. The word is informal, the language of players and commentators; the neutral term is a throw.
- 15In cricket, to deliver the ball with an incorrect action that amounts to throwing it rather than bowling it.
Coaches film young bowlers side-on to make sure they don't chuck.
Several umpires suspected that the fast bowler chucked whenever he sent down his quicker ball.
Similarthrow
Note
On the cricket field the verb belongs to the bowler and takes no object: a bowler chucks, or is accused of chucking, but does not chuck the ball. The complaint is about how the arm moves, not where the ball goes; each delivery that breaks the rule is a chuck, the noun.
- 16To place a piece of work in a chuck, or hold it with one, as when turning it on a lathe.
The machinist chucked the brass rod in the lathe, tightened the jaws, and faced off its end.
Woodturners often chuck a bowl blank by a short tenon cut on its base.
Note
A workshop verb made from the gripping device: to chuck a rod or a bowl blank is to clamp it so it can be turned, not to toss it. It has a separate history from the throwing verb, so a reader has to let the setting decide; lathes, jaws and tightening mean clamping, and a machinist who has chucked a part has secured it.
- 17On rhythm guitar, mandolin, and similar instruments, the muting of a chord by lifting the fretting fingers right after strumming it, which gives a percussive sound.
In bluegrass, the mandolin's chuck on the offbeat does much of the work a snare drum would.
The guitarist's crisp chucks on two and four gave the funk groove its snap.
Similarchop
Note
The silence comes from the fretting hand, not the strumming one: the fingers ease off the strings just after the strum while still touching them, so the chord dies into a dry, percussive click. Placed on the offbeat or the backbeat, chucks let a rhythm guitarist or mandolinist keep time much as a snare drum would.
- 18On rhythm guitar, mandolin, and similar instruments, to mute a chord by lifting the fretting fingers right after strumming, giving a percussive effect.
Funk guitarists often chuck between accented strums to keep the groove tight.
He chucked each offbeat chord so it barely rang, giving the reggae tune its bounce.
Similarmute
- 19A clucking sound, such as a hen makes, or a similar note in an animal's call.
Each male frog finished his whine with a few quick chucks.
The blackbird gave a sharp chuck of alarm and dived into the hedge.
Similarcluck
Note
Beyond the farmyard, the word serves as a unit of animal song. Scott Freeman and Jon C. Herron's Evolutionary Analysis (1998) describes a call that opens with a whine, to which males add up to six chucks, and reports that females prefer calls that have them. Used this way it is countable, a chuck or three chucks, each one a single short clucking note.
- 20To make a clucking sound, like a hen.
The hens chucked and muttered as the farmer scattered the grain.
A broody hen will chuck at you if you reach for her eggs.
Similarcluck
- 21To call others together in the way a hen calls her chickens, with a clucking sound.
Hearing the hawk, the hen chucked her brood together beneath the hedge with anxious clucks.
A rooster that finds a beetle will often chuck his hens over to share it.
Similarcall
Note
Here the sound becomes a summons, and the verb takes the called birds as its object. John Dryden's The Cock and the Fox (1700), retold from Chaucer, gives it to a rooster who claps his wing as "th'appointed call / To chuck his wives together in the hall." Together, or a word like it, usually completes the phrase: a bird chucks its brood together.
- 22To leave or set off from the place where one is.
The braai's finished, bru. Let's chuck before the traffic gets bad.
Most of the guys chucked early, but a few of us stayed until midnight.
Similarleave, go (entry), split, bounce, depart
Note
Heading off, South African style: among friends, let's chuck is a complete sentence meaning it is time to go. It belongs to relaxed talk between people who share the slang, and the nearest equivalent elsewhere is take off, which works the same way, with no object: we took off early, we chucked early.
- 23Food; something to eat.
After a long day on the range, the hands lined up by the wagon for chuck.
“Hambone, how's for chuck?” Hambone removed pipe from mouth, slowly. “Wal, I reckon I still got a few whistleberries left. Some sonofabitch stew mabbe. A few shot biscuits.”
1951, Frederick Feikema Manfred, Riders of JudgmentNote
Dated American slang, and the kind of word a period novel puts in a character's mouth: in Frederick Feikema Manfred's Riders of Judgment (1951) a man asks "how's for chuck?" and is offered stew and biscuits. Use it for color or period dialogue; in everyday speech food or something to eat is the natural choice, and chuck alone is more likely to be heard as the cut of beef.
- 24A domestic fowl; a chicken or hen.
A speckled chuck strutted across the farmyard, pecking at spilled grain.
The chucks had stopped laying once the cold weather set in.
Note
An old dialect word for a hen, now obsolete. Middle English chuk imitated a hen's cluck, so the bird was simply named after its own call, and the same imitation lies behind the clucking noise and the fond form of address. Readers meet it only in older regional writing; for anything said today, hen or chicken is the word.
- 25To chuckle, or more generally to laugh.
Who would not chuck to see such pleasing sport. To see such troupes of gallants still resort unto Cornutos shop.
1598, John Marston, “Satyre IV”Note
A laughing verb that has long dropped out of use. John Marston's "Satyre IV" (1598) asks "Who would not chuck to see such pleasing sport," and a reader meeting it in verse of that age should hear a laugh there, not the throwing verb. Chuckle carries the meaning today; chuck in this sense has no place in new writing.
- 26A small pebble.
He had a chuck in his shoe and had to stop halfway up the brae.
The bairns spent the afternoon skimming chucks across the loch.
Note
A Scottish word for a small stone, named for what you do with it: it comes from the verb meaning to toss, so a chuck is a pebble fit for throwing. Outside Scotland it is unlikely to be understood this way, and pebble is the clearer word there.
- 27Money; used in the plural, as chucks.
Note
Old Scottish slang for money, always in the plural: someone had a few chucks, never a chuck. It shares its tossing origin with the Scottish word for a pebble, and it has long since dropped out of use, so it belongs to older writing rather than to anything said in Scotland today.
- 28To bore or turn a hole in a piece of work while it revolves, held in a chuck.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
A variant of chock.
From Middle English chuk, an imitative word copying the sound of a hen's cluck.
From Middle English chukken, which was formed from the related noun.
From earlier chock, likely imitative, though perhaps also from Middle English chokken ("to thrust, pierce, cram"), from Picard Old French chuquier ("to collide, strike"), from Middle Dutch schocken ("to bump, shake"). It is a doublet of shock and shuck.
From woodchuck.
From chuck in the sense "to toss".