shucking









shucking


shucking [shuhk-ing] ExamplesWord Origin noun

  1. husking.

Origin of shucking shuck1 + -ing1 shuck 1[shuhk] noun

  1. a husk or pod, as the outer covering of corn, hickory nuts, chestnuts, etc.
  2. Usually shucks. Informal. something useless or worthless: They don’t care shucks about the project.
  3. the shell of an oyster or clam.

verb (used with object)

  1. to remove the shucks from: to shuck corn.
  2. to remove or discard as or like shucks; peel off: to shuck one’s clothes.
  3. Slang. to get rid of (often followed by off): a bad habit I couldn’t shuck off for years.

interjection

  1. shucks, Informal. (used as a mild exclamation of disgust or regret.)

Origin of shuck 1First recorded in 1665–75; origin uncertainRelated formsshuck·er, noun shuck 2[shuhk] verb (used with object) Slang.

  1. to deceive or lie to.

Origin of shuck 2 1955–60; origin uncertain; perhaps from exclamation shucks! (see shuck1) taken as a feigned sign of rural ignorance or a sham apology Related Words for shucking shed, shell, peel, remove, husk, strip, discard, pod, ditch, jettison, worthless Examples from the Web for shucking Contemporary Examples of shucking

  • Shucking oysters is a particular skill and a task best approached clear-headed and with no distractions.

    What to Eat

    Cookstr.com

    September 1, 2009

  • Historical Examples of shucking

  • Of course the best practice is to wash the nuts immediately after shucking.

    Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943

    Various

  • On his shoulder sat a squirrel, shucking chestnuts so that the shells fell upon his beard.

    The Quest

    Frederik van Eeden

  • Only you must give me a sounder reason than my diverting conversational powers for shucking me.

    Free Air

    Sinclair Lewis

  • Sometimes after leaving the fields at dark they had to work at night—shucking corn, ginning cotton or weaving.

    Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves

    Work Projects Administration

  • The relative decrease in price as compared with Newburyport is due to the fact that shucking is not so extensively practised here.

    A Report upon the Mollusk Fisheries of Massachusetts

    Commissioners on Fisheries and Game

  • British Dictionary definitions for shucking shuck noun

    1. the outer covering of something, such as the husk of a grain of maize, a pea pod, or an oyster shell

    verb (tr)

    1. to remove the shucks from
    2. informal, mainly US and Canadian to throw off or remove (clothes, etc)

    Derived Formsshucker, nounWord Origin for shuck C17: American dialect, of unknown origin Word Origin and History for shucking shuck v.

    “to remove the shucks from,” 1819, from or related to shuck (n.). Related: Shucked; shucking.

    Many extended senses are from the notion of “stripping” an ear of corn, or from the capers associated with husking frolics; e.g. “to strip (off) one’s clothes” (1848) and “to deceive, swindle, cheat, fool” (1959); phrase shucking and jiving “fooling, deceiving” is suggested from 1966, in U.S. black English, but cf. shuck (v.) a slang term among “cool musicians” for “to improvise chords, especially to a piece of music one does not know” (1957), and shuck (n.) “a theft or fraud,” in use by 1950s among U.S. blacks.

    [B]lack senses probably fr[om] the fact that black slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and this behavior, along with lying and teasing, became a part of the protective and evasive behavior normally adopted towards white people in “traditional” race relations; the sense of “swindle” is perhaps related to the mid-1800s term to be shucked out, “be defeated, be denied victory,” which suggests that the notion of stripping someone as an ear of corn is stripped may be basic in the semantics. [“Dictionary of American Slang”] shuck n.

    “husk, pod, shell,” 1670s, of unknown origin. Cf. shuck (v.). Later used in reference to the shells of oysters and clams (1872). Figurative as a type of something worthless from 1836.

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