shuck.
The shell or husk, especially of grains (e.g. corn/maize) or nuts (e.g. walnuts).
Meaning & usage
The shell or husk, especially of grains (e.g. corn/maize) or nuts (e.g. walnuts).
A fraud; a scam.
A phony.
Where this word comes from
Origin unknown. Possibly a dialectal survival of unrecorded Middle English *schulk(e), *schullok (“small shell”); either from Old English *sċylluc, *sċylloc, diminutive of Old English sċyll (“shell”), or alternatively created in Middle English from Middle English schulle, schelle (“shell, husk, pod”) + -ok, making it equivalent to shell + -ock (diminutive suffix) or shell + -k (diminutive suffix).
To remove the shuck from (walnuts, oysters, etc.).
Shall we shuck walnuts?
To remove (any outer covering).
I will shuck my clothes and dive naked into the pool.
To remove (an external hard drive or solid-state drive) from its casing so that it can be used inside another device.
To fool; to hoax.
Where this word comes from
Origin unknown. Possibly a dialectal survival of unrecorded Middle English *schulk(e), *schullok (“small shell”); either from Old English *sċylluc, *sċylloc, diminutive of Old English sċyll (“shell”), or alternatively created in Middle English from Middle English schulle, schelle (“shell, husk, pod”) + -ok, making it equivalent to shell + -ock (diminutive suffix) or shell + -k (diminutive suffix).
To shake; shiver.
To slither or slip, move about, wriggle.
To do hurriedly or in a restless way.
To avoid; baffle, outwit, shirk.
To walk at a slow trot.
Where this word comes from
From a dialectal variant of shock.
A supernatural and generally malevolent black dog in English folklore.
Where this word comes from
Possibly from Middle English shucke, schucke (“demon, monster”), from Old English sċucca (“an evil spirit”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.