duck and cover
duck and cover verb: to duck under a surface and cover one's face with one's hands, as a means to protect oneself from flying debris etc.
Verb
duck and cover (third-person singular simple present ducks and covers, present participle ducking and covering, simple past and past participle ducked and covered)
- To duck under a surface and cover one's face with one's hands, as a means to protect oneself from flying debris etc.
- It's Christmas at ground zero / Just seconds left to go / I'll duck and cover / With my Yuletide lover / Underneath the mistletoe1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!
Forms of duck and cover
| third-person singular present | ducks and covers |
|---|---|
| present participle | ducking and covering |
| past participle | ducked and covered |
| past | ducked and covered |
Questions about duck and cover
- What does duck and cover mean?
- Duck and cover means to duck under a surface and cover one's face with one's hands, as a means to protect oneself from flying debris etc.
- What part of speech is duck and cover?
- Duck and cover is a verb.
- What is the past tense of duck and cover?
- The past tense of duck and cover is ducked and covered.
Words near duck and cover in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: duck and cover (page history and authors). 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.
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Cite this entry: “duck and cover.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/duck_and_cover. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.