shuck

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My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it makes such a rustling that you wake up.

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A husk, pod, or shell, as of a pea, hickory nut, or ear of corn.
  2. noun The shell of an oyster or clam.
  3. noun Informal Something worthless. Often used in the plural: an issue that didn't amount to shucks.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (11)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (48)

  • The prime minister (Taoiseach, pronounced "TEE-shuck") is elected by the Dail (lower house of Parliament) as the leader of the political party, or coalition of parties, which wins the most seats in the national elections, held approximately every 5 years (unless called earlier).
  • WA native casino cash counting rooms do not have these counting irregularities. nor do Publishers Clearinghouse sweeps. someone looks very closely at both, like a Stefan. perhaps we are getting the shuck-n-jive from both parties. pretty sad. our own employees ignoring us. public or private sector, i've observed those wielding the actual power stick get things changed -- that is -- IF they want it so. jimmie-howya-doin on March 13, 2007 02: 33 PM —  Sound Politics
  • Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. —  American Samizdat: Rebel Scum Since 2001
  • He frowned judicially as he laid his hand upon the papers Well, sir," said he, "I'm gittin' ole, an' I reckon I ain't much nohow; I'm sorter like the grey colt that tried to climb in the shuck-pen--I'm weak, but willin'. —  Mingo And Other Sketches in Black and White
  • They would have a whole lot of corn to shuck, and they would give the corn shucking and the barbecue together. —  Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Arkansas Narratives, Part 3
 

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (7)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Origin unknown. Interj., alteration of shit.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (6)

  1. A dial. form of shock or of shake (through the preterit shook, variant shuck).
  2. Origin obscure; the nearest similar forms, shuck, shake, shuck, shock, a heap, shock, shaggy, do not explain the word. If the verb is original, it may perhaps be a dial. form of shock, and so belong with shuck.
  3. See shuck, n.
  4. A variant of shock, shook.
  5. Found only in early Middle English schucke, scucke, from Anglo-Saxon scucca, sceocca, the devil; cf. German scheuche, a scarecrow, from Middle High German schiech, German scheu, shy: see shy.
  6. Cf. sic.
 

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/ʃək/
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