chucks

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular present of chuck.

   Every Friday he chucks the week's junk mail straight into the recycling bin.

   If the forecast turns wet, the club usually chucks its outdoor plans and books the hall instead.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of chuck.

   Keyless chucks let you change a drill bit by hand in a few seconds.

   The lathe's three-jaw and four-jaw chucks hang on a rack beside the bench.

   Note

   A plural that fits some meanings of chuck better than others. It counts the gripping devices on drills and lathes, clucking sounds, and, in slang, friends. Shoulder meat and the dated American slang for food also work as mass nouns, so a butcher can sell chuck by the pound with no plural in sight; chucks there would mean separate cuts.

3. 3
   noundialectalScotlanduncountable

   The game known as jacks or jackstones.

   We spent every wet playtime on the classroom floor playing chucks.

   Chucks was banned in the corridor after one too many stones went skittering under the radiators.

   Similarjacks, jackstones, knucklebones, fivestones

   Note

   A Scottish name for the game; most other English speakers say jacks or jackstones, and outside Scotland jacks is the safer word. Like those names, it is plural in form but usually singular in use: chucks was banned in the corridor, not chucks were.

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