▪ I. plucked, a. colloq.
(plʌkt)
[f. pluck n.1 + -ed2.]
a. Having pluck or courage; usually in Comb., as good-plucked, rare-plucked, well-plucked; so bad-plucked, deficient in courage.
| 1846 Swell's Night Guide 79 At a set to, he is a Dick Curtis the second; and an out and out plucked one. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xxxvii, What a good plucked one that boy of mine is! 1857 Hughes Tom Brown i. vii, The bad plucked ones thinking that after all it isn't worth while to keep it up. 1873 Routledge's Yng. Gentl. Mag. Feb. 137/2 ‘You see I'm a plucked'un’, he said. 1916 F. M. Ford Let. 23 Aug. (1965) 69 George V..really was in some danger... Still he gave the impression of a ‘good plucked 'un’. |
b. hard-plucked, hard-hearted, wanting in tenderness.
| 1857 Kingsley Two Y. Ago iv, A very sensible man,..but a terrible hard-plucked one. |
▪ II. plucked, ppl. a.
(plʌkt)
[f. pluck v. + -ed1.]
In various senses of the verb.
1. a. Picked off; pulled sharply, twitched, etc.
| 1552 Huloet, Plucked in sunder, distractus. 1821 Byron Sardan. i. ii. 605 So let me fall like the pluck'd rose! 1881 Broadhouse Mus. Acoustics 197 The tone of plucked cat-gut strings..is..much less tinkling than that of metal strings. |
b. Textiles. (See quot. 1940.)
| 1799 G. Smith Laboratory I. 197 Fine short plucked cotton. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict. 654/2 Plucked.., the term used to denote uneven thickness in a top, roving, or yarn, generally caused by excessive draft. 1974 H. McCloy Sleepwalker v. 72 A short coat of plucked nutria. |
2. a. Denuded of feathers or hair.
| 1508 Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 382, I thoght my self a papingay, & him a plukit herle. 1886 W. J. Tucker E. Europe 44 [She] sold live geese, and plucked geese on the market here. 1890 Cent. Dict., Plucked, p.a., having the long stiff hairs removed: said of the pelt of a fur-seal. |
b. plucked wool: wool from a dead sheep.
| 1911 in Webster. 1932 E. Midgley Technical Terms in Textile Trade II. 156 Plucked wool, wool plucked from a sheep which has been dead a few days. Sometimes this term is applied to skin wool. 1957 M. B. Picken Fashion Dict. 258/1 Plucked wool, wool from dead sheep. |
c. Of eyebrows: shaped or thinned by plucking out hairs.
| 1928 R. Hall Well of Loneliness xlviii. 449 A handsome young man with severely plucked eyebrows. 1935 R. Stout League of Frightened Men xvii. 237 Her face..with its broad flat nose and plucked eyebrows. 1938 L. MacNeice I Crossed Minch ii. 25 A few signpost details such as plucked eyebrows and lipstick. 1962 M. Barrett Return of Cornish Sailor ii. 15 The plucked eyebrow lifted. 1974 Times 26 Oct. 8/8 The corny peroxide blondes with their plucked eyebrows. |
3. Rejected in a university or other examination.
| 1827 Blackw. Mag. XXI. 895 Of the three classes of Predicamentists, the fiercest are the Plucked. 1853 ‘C. Bede’ Verdant Green ii. ii, ‘I have been examined’, observed Mr. Pucker, with the air of a plucked man. |
4. Physical Geogr. Eroded or broken off by plucking. (Cf. pluck v. 1 b.)
| 1893 Bull. Mus. Compar. Zoöl. Harvard Coll. XVI. 210 The plucked out material carried away in the form of boulders amounts to as much as one fifth of that removed in the other forms of erosion. 1942 C. A. Cotton Climatic Accidents Landscape-Making xvii. 245 Shorn hills may..present somewhat steep lee sides, perhaps plucked. 1957 J. K. Charlesworth Quaternary Era I. xi. The 249 boundary between abraded and plucked surfaces is sometimes that between different kinds of rock. |
Hence ˈpluckedness.
| 1867 Gd. Words 657/2 The abject nakedness—more than nakedness—pluckedness of his body. |
Add: [1.] c. Mus. Of a stringed instrument: designed to be played by plucking.
| 1930 tr. C. Sachs in O. Andersson Bowed-Harp i. 30 Towards the west come the late mediæval plucked lyres of the Norwegians. 1961 A. C. Baines Mus. Instruments i. 45 They are subdivided into two groups, plucked lutes, and bowed lutes and fiddles. 1984 New Grove Dict. Mus. Instruments II. 642/2 ‘Plucked drums’ have a string knotted below the centre of the membrane. |