Chuck

How to spell chuck

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chuck

What does chuck mean?

1. verbTo throw or toss something in a casual, offhand way.
2. verbTo give up or abandon something, often a job or commitment (informal).
3. nounA cut of beef taken from the neck and shoulder of the animal.
4. nounThe part of a drill or lathe that holds a bit or workpiece firmly in place.

Chuck in a sentence

• verb

  Please chuck the empty cans into the recycling bin.

• verb

  After years of stress he decided to chuck the whole project and start again.

• noun

  A slow stew works best with a tough cut like chuck.

• noun

  Tighten the chuck before you switch the drill on.

• verb

  He likes to chuck a tennis ball for the dog after work.

• verb

  She threatened to chuck her course and travel instead.

Where does chuck come from?

Language of origin: French

Chuck is a word whose tangled history reflects several overlapping senses rather than one clean origin. The verb meaning 'to throw or toss carelessly' appeared in the late 1500s and is probably an adaptation of the Old French verb 'chuquer' or 'choquer', meaning 'to knock' or 'to bump against', the same source that gives us 'shock'. A separate strand comes from a playful 'chuck under the chin', recorded in the same period, which may simply imitate the soft clucking sound made to a child or a hen, and this affectionate gesture is likely why 'chuck' became a regional term of endearment. The mechanical 'chuck' that grips a drill bit or workpiece, along with the butcher's 'chuck' cut of beef, both descend from an older variant of 'chock', meaning a solid block or lump of wood. Because these meanings arrived from different directions and settled on the same plain four-letter spelling, the word looks far simpler than its history actually is. Spelling it is rarely a problem, since 'ch' plus 'uck' is wholly regular.

How the word is built

• chuck (single root; no productive prefix or suffix)