Stuck

How to spell stuck

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce stuck

What does stuck mean?

1. adjectiveUnable to move, be moved, or make progress.
2. verbPast tense and past participle of stick, meaning to have fixed, attached, or remained in place.

Stuck in a sentence

• adjective

  The car got stuck in the mud after the storm.

• verb

  He stuck the stamp onto the envelope before posting it.

• adjective

  She felt stuck in a job that offered no real future.

• verb

  They stuck to the original plan despite the criticism.

Where does stuck come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Stuck is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'stick', which comes from the Old English 'stician', meaning 'to pierce, stab, or remain fixed in place'. That verb traces back to a Germanic root shared with words like the Dutch 'steken' and the German 'stechen', all carrying the sense of jabbing or fastening something so it holds. The original idea of a sharp object piercing and then staying lodged gradually broadened into the general notion of anything being fixed, trapped, or unable to move. The irregular vowel change from 'stick' to 'stuck' reflects an old Germanic pattern of forming past tenses by altering the root vowel rather than adding an ending, the same pattern seen in 'sing' and 'sung'. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, the only mild trap is remembering the double consonant cluster 'ck' at the end.

How the word is built

• stuck (past tense and past participle of stick, from Old English stician)