plucker


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pluck

 (plŭk)
v. plucked, pluck·ing, plucks
v.tr.
1. To remove or detach by grasping and pulling abruptly with the fingers; pick: pluck a flower; pluck feathers from a chicken.
2. To pull out the hair or feathers of: pluck a chicken.
3. To remove abruptly or forcibly: plucked their child from school in midterm.
4. To give an abrupt pull to; tug at: pluck a sleeve.
5. Music To sound (the strings of an instrument) by pulling and releasing them with the fingers or a plectrum.
v.intr.
To give an abrupt pull; tug.
n.
1. The act or an instance of plucking.
2. Resourceful courage and daring in the face of difficulties; spirit.
3. The heart, liver, windpipe, and lungs of a slaughtered animal.

[Middle English plukken, from Old English pluccian, probably from Vulgar Latin *piluccāre, ultimately from Latin pilāre, from pilus, hair.]

pluck′er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
References in classic literature ?
There were the wool-pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off.
Other mechanized plucker options include the Whizbang Chicken Plucker (http://bit.ly/lKga2Vl) and the Featherman Pro (http://bit.ly/lGCcyzx).
Performance-based logistics contract management has become more mature in recent years, said Wayne Plucker, an aircraft and engine maintenance, repair and overhaul expert at the Frost & Sullivan consulting group.
Conceptions of giftedness mirror theoretical progress with related constructs, such as intelligence and creativity (Plucker & Esping, 2014).
"We would have had to spend $4,000 just for the cheapest plucker we could buy," he said.
There is a remarkable subset of the real Grassmannian [Gr.sub.k,n](R) called its totally non-negative part [([Gr.sub.k,n]).sub.[greater than or equal to] 0] [7, 9], which may be defined as the subset of the real Grassmannian where all Plucker coordinates have the same sign.
In many areas, such as the link between creativity and substance abuse, there is very little evidence of any such relationship (Plucker & Dana, 1999).
Year eight students Megan Gillespie and Hannah Plucker gave a display of contemporary dance and Hannah also sang the Filipino national anthem.
Smiling Joe Rowntree, deadpan Jo Caulfield and happy plucker Andy Askins ensured that the Dilmun Club's Candles Restaurant was filled with giggles, titters and full-on guffaws.
Previous reports by the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy (CEEP) on higher education have dealt with topics such as trends in college remediation courses (Plucker, Wongsarpigoon, & Houser, 2003), post-secondary credit-based transition programs (Plucker, Chieu, & Zaman, 2006), university sponsorship of charter schools (Plucker et al., 2004), and the status of athletics and Title IX in Indiana (Eckes & Chamberlin, 2003).