pluck

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To remove or detach by grasping and pulling abruptly with the fingers; pick: pluck a flower; pluck feathers from a chicken.
2. v. To pull out the hair or feathers of: pluck a chicken.
3. v. To remove abruptly or forcibly: plucked the child from school in midterm.
4. v. To give an abrupt pull to; tug at: pluck a sleeve.
5. v. Music To sound (the strings of an instrument) by pulling and releasing them with the fingers or a plectrum.
6. v. To give an abrupt pull; tug.
7. n. The act or an instance of plucking.
8. n. Resourceful courage and daring in the face of difficulties; spirit.
9. n. The heart, liver, windpipe, and lungs of a slaughtered animal.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To pull off, as feathers from a fowl, or fruit or flowers from a plant; pick off; gather; pick or cull, as berries or flowers.
2. To pull; draw; drag: used either literally or figuratively.
3. Especially To pull sharply; pull with sudden force or jerk; give a tugor twitch to; twitch; snatch; twang, as the strings of a harp or guitar.
4. To strip, as a fowl, by pulling off its feathers; strip the feathers from: as, to pluck a fowl.
5. To reject, after a university or other examination, as not coming up to the required standard.
6. To summon or muster up: as, to pluck up courage, spirit, etc.
7. Intrans., to collect one's self; gather spirit or courage.
8. n. A pull; a tug; a twitch; a snatch: as, he gave the sword a pluck.
9. n. A blow; a stroke.
10. n. A bout; around.
11. n. The heart, liver, and lungs or lights of a sheep, ox, or other animal used as butchers' meat: also used figuratively or humorously of the like parts of a human being.
12. n. Hence Heart; courage; spirit; determined energy; resolution in the face of difficulties.
13. n. The pogge, Agonus cataphractus.
14. In geology, to pry off or tear away, as blocks of rock from the lee side of cliffs or projections, or more moderate slopes: said of the action of moving ice, as in glaciers. See plucking.
15. To pull sharply, as if at the folds of a skirt: used with at.
16. In geology, to break off easily in large pieces, as granite. See plucking.

Wiktionary

1. v. To pull something sharply; to pull something out
2. v. To gently play a single string, e.g. on a guitar, violin etc.
3. v. To remove feathers from a bird.
4. v. To rob, fleece, steal forcibly
5. v. To play a string instrument pizzicato
6. v. To pull or twitch sharply
7. n. An instance of plucking
8. n. The lungs, heart with trachea and often oesophagus removed from slaughtered animals.
9. n. Guts, nerve, fortitude or persistence.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To pull; to draw.
2. v. Especially, to pull with sudden force or effort, or to pull off or out from something, with a twitch; to twitch; also, to gather, to pick
3. v. To strip of, or as of, feathers.
4. v. To reject at an examination for degrees.
5. v. To make a motion of pulling or twitching; -- usually with at.
6. n. The act of plucking; a pull; a twitch.
7. n. The heart, liver, and lights of an animal.
8. n. Spirit; courage; indomitable resolution; fortitude.
9. n. The act of plucking, or the state of being plucked, at college. See Pluck, v. t., 4.
10. n. The lyrie.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. sell something to or obtain something from by energetic and especially underhanded activity
2. v. look for and gather
3. n. the act of pulling and releasing a taut cord
4. v. strip of feathers
5. v. rip off; ask an unreasonable price
6. v. pull or pull out sharply
7. v. pull lightly but sharply with a plucking motion
8. n. the trait of showing courage and determination in spite of possible loss or injury