Word.ws English Dictionary

chuck

/t͡ʃʌk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Ireland/t͡ʃʊk/

chuck noun: meat from the shoulder of a cow or other animal. Also the abbreviation of woodchuck.

chuck: meat from the shoulder of a cow or other animal
Image: Dirk Gräfe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

chuck (countable and uncountable, plural chucks)

  1. Meat from the shoulder of a cow or other animal.
    • Arm chucks represent approximately 54% of the beef forequarters.1975, Thomas Fabbricante, William J. Sultan, Practical Meat Cutting and Merchandising: Beef, page 141
    • Often, pieces of the chuck are sold boneless as flat chunks of meat or rolled and tied.2001, Bruce Aidells, Denis Kelly, The Complete Meat Cookbook: A Juicy and Authoritative Guide, page 190
  2. (US, dated, slang) Food.
    • “Hambone, how's for chuck?”
      Hambone removed pipe from mouth, slowly. “Wal, I reckon I still got a few whistleberries left. Some sonofabitch stew mabbe. A few shot biscuits.”1951, Frederick Feikema Manfred, Riders of Judgment, Second, published 2014, →ISBN
  3. A mechanical device that holds an object firmly in place, for example holding a drill bit in a high-speed rotating drill or grinder.
    • I have had a chuck of this kind made in brass with the cones of iron, but it is cumbrous and expensive, and does not answer so well, owing to the surface of the iron offering less resistance to the work turning within it. This, perhaps, might be remedied by roughing; but I think the chuck is much...1824, Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain), Transactions, Volume 42, page 88
    • Iron and steel in contact with magnets retain some of the magnetism, which is sometimes more or less of a nuisance in getting small work off the chucks.1912, Fred Herbert Colvin, Frank Arthur Stanley, American Machinist Grinding Book, page 322

Verb (1)

chuck (third-person singular simple present chucks, present participle chucking, simple past and past participle chucked)

  1. To place in a chuck, or hold by means of a chuck, as in turning.
  2. To bore or turn (a hole) in a revolving piece held in a chuck.

Noun (2)

chuck (plural chucks)

  1. (dialectal, obsolete) A chicken, a hen.
  2. A clucking sound.
    • The call always starts with a whine, to which the males add from 0 to 6 chucks. In choice tests, females approach calls that contain chucks in preference to calls that contain no chucks.1998, Scott Freeman, Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis, page 604
  3. (slang) A friend or close acquaintance; term of endearment.
    • Are you all right, chuck?
    • Pray, chuck, come hither.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

Verb (2)

chuck (third-person singular simple present chucks, present participle chucking, simple past and past participle chucked)

  1. To make a clucking sound.
  2. To call, as a hen her chickens.
    • Then crowing clapped his wing, th'appointed call
      To chuck his wives together in the hall.1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  3. (obsolete) To chuckle; to laugh.
    • Who would not chuck to see such pleasing sport.
      To see such troupes of gallants still resort
      unto Cornutos shop.1598, John Marston, “Satyre IV”, in The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image, and Certaine Satyres (poem)

Noun (3)

chuck (plural chucks)

  1. A gentle touch or tap.
    • She gave him an affectionate chuck under the chin.
  2. (informal) A casual throw.
  3. (informal) A throw, an incorrect bowling action.
  4. (slang) An act or instance of vomiting.
  5. On rhythm guitar or mandolin etc., the muting of a chord by lifting the fretting fingers immediately after strumming, producing a percussive effect.

Verb (3)

chuck (third-person singular simple present chucks, present participle chucking, simple past and past participle chucked)

  1. To playfully give a light touch, stroke, tap, etc., to someone, especially under the chin.
    • [Y]ou look now as you did before we were married—when you used to walk with me under the Elms, and tell me stories of what a Gallant you were in your youth—and chuck me under the chin you would—and ask me if I thought I could love an old Fellow who would deny me nothing—didn't you?1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, III.ii
    • ‘Oh, my oath,’ Dan said, and ‘chucked’ Mrs. Brown familiarly under the chin. ‘Get along wid you!’ she cried, jumping back and colouring up.1911, ‘Steel Rudd’, The Book of Dan, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, published 1970, page 44
  2. (informal, transitive) To throw, especially in a careless or inaccurate manner.
    • Chuck that magazine to me, would you?
    Synonyms:
    fling, hurl, bung, cast, chunk, cook, dash, dump, feck, jerk
  3. (intransitive) To throw; to bowl with an incorrect action.
  4. (informal, transitive) To discard, to throw away.
    • This food's gone off - you'd better chuck it.
    • When Dangerfield put the little roll in his hand, Irons looked suspicious and frightened, and balanced it in his palm, as if he had thoughts of chucking it from him, as though it were literally a satanic douceur. But it is hard to part with money, and Irons, though he still looked cowed and...1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
  5. (informal, transitive) To jilt; to dump.
    • She's chucked me for another man!
  6. (dated, informal, transitive) To give up; to stop doing; to quit.
    • "When he got religion old Joe stuck every penny away in the Savings Bank, and when he chucked religion he'd draw out the lot and go on a bender that landed him in the horrors, like as not."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 101
  7. (intransitive, slang) To vomit.
  8. (South Africa, intransitive, slang) To leave; to depart; to bounce.
    • Let's chuck.
  9. On rhythm guitar or mandolin etc.: to mute a chord by lifting the fretting fingers immediately after strumming, producing a percussive effect.

Noun (4)

chuck (plural chucks)

  1. (Scotland) A small pebble.
  2. (Scotland, in plural, obsolete, slang) Money.

Noun (5)

chuck (countable and uncountable, plural chucks)

  1. A pair of nunchaku, especially when using two.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Chuck

Chuck (plural Chucks)

  1. A form of the male given name Charles, of mostly American usage.
    • The digital ads open over a shot of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, while a narrator declares: “For years, it paralyzed Washington: Partisan political dysfunction.”2015 May 12, Alexandra Jaffe, “First on CNN: New Rove-linked group spends $2M to boost GOP incumbents”, in CNN

Noun (6) capitalized: Chuck

Chuck (plural Chucks)

  1. (informal, plural-normally) a Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoe.
    • Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent / Gotta kiss myself, I'm so pretty2014, “Uptown Funk”, performed by Mark Ronson
    • Used to be shoes off, but it's never that
      Since he found the metal shavings waiting by the welcome mat
      Everyday stuck, keep the heater tucked
      They got him sleeping in his Chucks2020, clipping., “Check the Lock”, in Visions of Bodies Being Burned, via Spotify

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Chuck

Chuck

  1. (Canada, slang) The city of Edmonton.

Also used as

chuck is also the abbreviation of woodchuck.

chuck meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

chuck in Hindi

चक

chuck in Urdu

چک

chuck in Telugu

చక్, చుక్, చుక్ చెయ్యడానికి

chuck in Malayalam

ചക്ക്, ചുക്ക്, ചക്ക് ചെയ്യാൻ
More languagesFewer languages
chuck in Kannada
ಚಕ್, ಚುಕ್
chuck in Nepali
चुक्
chuck in Indonesian
sampil

Examples of chuck in a sentence

  • The chucks are that portion of foresaddle remaining after excluding the hotel rack and plate portions of the breast as described in Item No. 306.2006, North American Meat Processors Association, The Meat Buyers Guide: Beef, Lamb, Veal, Pork, and Poultry, page 113:
  • The first step in preparing a test specimen with the FlexPrepᵀᴹ is to secure the gyratory specimen in the chuck of the machine.2008, Ramon Francis Bonaquist, NHCRP Report 614: Refining the Simple Performance Tester for Use in Routine Practice, page 30:

All 40 example sentences with chuck

Synonyms of chuck

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of chuck

Forms of chuck

Noun
pluralchucks
alternative form'chuck
alternative Scotlandchack
pluralChucks
alternative form (obsolete)chock
Verb
third-person singular presentchucks
present participlechucking
past participlechucked
pastchucked

Past tense of chuck: chucked

Plural of chuck: chucks

Origin of chuck

Variant of chock.

From Middle English chuk, of onomatopoeic origin, imitative of a hen's cluck.

From Middle English chukken, from the noun (see above).

Words formed from chuck

Phrases with chuck

Words that rhyme with chuck

39 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chuck

What does chuck mean?
Chuck means meat from the shoulder of a cow or other animal.
What is chuck in Hindi?
Chuck in Hindi is चक. See Chuck meaning in Hindi.
How do you use chuck in a sentence?
The chucks are that portion of foresaddle remaining after excluding the hotel rack and plate portions of the breast as described in Item No. 306.
What part of speech is chuck?
Chuck can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chuck?
Chuck is pronounced /t͡ʃʌk/.
What is the plural of chuck?
The plural of chuck is chucks.

Words near chuck in the dictionary

  1. Chuchito
  2. chuchotage
  3. Chuchow
  4. chuchupate
  5. chuchvara
  6. chuck
  7. chuck a dummy
  8. chuck a sickie
  9. chuck a spaz
  10. chuck a uey
  11. chuck a wobbly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chuck (page history and authors); Chuck (page history and authors); chuck (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chuck (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chuck (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chuck (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chuck (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); chuck (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-chuck.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chuck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chuck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.