Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A trumpet fanfare.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A small ear of maize in the green and milky stage of growth. Also used attributively: as, tucket corn.
  • noun A flourish on a trumpet; a fanfare. The term may originally have been used of a drumsignal.
  • noun A steak; a collop.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A slight flourish on a trumpet; a fanfare.
  • noun [Obs.] the sound of the tucket.
  • noun obsolete A steak; a collop.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun music A fanfare played on one or more trumpets.
  • noun obsolete A steak; a collop.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (music) a short lively tune played on brass instruments

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from obsolete tuk, from Middle English, from tukken, to beat a drum; see tuck.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Italian tocchetto ("a ragout of fish, meat"), from tocco ("a bit, morsel"), Late Latin tucetum ("a thick gravy"), tuccetum ("a thick gravy").

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Examples

  • Quarrelling, snatching, but smoothly efficient, they speedily draped themselves; took a tucket in here, let a gusset out there, spliced a waist or strapped up a bodice; in no time at all they were like paradise birds, and off they minced to see the old lady.

    Cider With Rosie Lee, Laurie 1959

  • The provost's litter, too, came up alongside the duke's horse in the open space, then they all moved forward at the slow processional: three steps and a halt for the trumpets to blow a tucket; three more and another tucket; the great yellow horse stepping high and casting up his head, from which flew many flakes of white foam.

    Privy Seal His Last Venture Ford Madox Ford 1906

  • 'Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet --' _i. e._, the 'tucket sounded' which is indicated in the stage direction.

    Shakespeare and Music With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries 1900

  • _ IV, ii, 35, where the Constable of France orders the trumpets to 'sound the tucket-sonance, and the note to mount,' which fits in with Markham's definition, for the passage appears to recognise the tucket as in some sort a _preparatory_ signal.

    Shakespeare and Music With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries 1900

  • And while the tucket was sounding, Bennet moved close to the bewildered parson, and whispered violently in his ear.

    The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • And therewith he raised a little tucket to his mouth and wound a rousing call.

    The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • Instantly, without the church, a tucket sounded shrill, and through the open portal archers and men-at-arms, uniformly arrayed in the colours and wearing the badge of Lord Risingham, began to file into the church, took Dick and Lawless from those who still detained them, and, closing their files about the prisoners, marched forth again and disappeared.

    The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • But it is always the easier to destroy; and when a single note upon the tucket recalled the attacking party from this desperate service, much of the barricade had been removed piecemeal, and the whole fabric had sunk to half its height, and tottered to a general fall.

    The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • By this time the tucket was sounding cheerily in the morning, and from all sides Sir Daniel's men poured into the main street and formed before the inn.

    The Black Arrow Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • Classical 'tuck' from Italian 'toccata,' the preluding 'touch' or flourish, on any instrument (but see Johnson under word 'tucket,' quoting _Othello_).

    The Crown of Wild Olive also Munera Pulveris; Pre-Raphaelitism; Aratra Pentelici; The Ethics of the Dust; Fiction, Fair and Foul; The Elements of Drawing John Ruskin 1859

Comments

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  • tucket calvary trumpet flourish

    January 9, 2007

  • He fondled each farthing and ducat

    Before dropping them into his bucket.

    The comforting sound

    As they rattled around

    To him was both nocturne and tucket.

    July 29, 2016

  • (noun) - (1) A flourish in music; a voluntary; from Italian tocato, a touch.

    --Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850

    (2) A flourish on a trumpet or a drum. Boute-selle, a French trumpet-call bidding horse-soldiers saddle their horses. Literally "set-saddle."

    --C.A.M. Fennell's Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words, 1892

    January 14, 2018