ducking
/ˈdʌkɪŋ/
ducking is the present participle and gerund of duck.
ducking is the euphemistic form of fucking.
Noun (1)
ducking (countable and uncountable, plural duckings)
- An instance of ducking down, e.g. to hide.
- An instance of ducking (a person in water, etc).
- They gave him a ducking in the river as a punishment.
Meaning of duck
Verb
duck (third-person singular simple present ducks, present participle ducking, simple past and past participle ducked)
- To quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.
- As some raw youth in country bred,
To arms by thirst of honour led,
When at a skirmish first he hears
The bullets whistling round his ears,
Will duck his head asidec. 1729, Jonathan Swift, To Dr. Delany on the Libels Written Against Him
- Synonyms:
- dip
- As some raw youth in country bred,
- To lower (something) into water; to thrust or plunge under liquid and suddenly withdraw.
- Adams after ducking the Squire tvvice or thrice leaped out of the Tub, […]1742, Henry Fielding, “A Scene of Roasting Very Nicely Adapted to the Present Taste and Times”, in The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. […], volume...
- To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to plunge one's head into water or other liquid.
- […]In Tiber ducking thrice, by break of day[…]1693, Aulus Persius Flaccus, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus.] The Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with...
- To bow.
- The Learned pate / Duckes to the Golden Foole.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- To evade doing something, especially something considered a responsibility.
- Victorian women choosing to duck the demands of domestic life to spend their time doing something they enjoyed is hardly a novel idea.2018 July 21, Kathryn Hughes, “The strange cult of Emily Brontë and the 'hot mess' of Wuthering Heights”, in The Guardian
- To lower the volume of (a sound) so that other sounds in the mix can be heard more clearly.
- The music is ducked under the voice.2007, Alexander U. Case, Sound FX: unlocking the creative potential of recording studio effects, page 183
Meaning of fucking
Adjective
fucking (not comparable)
- An intensifier, often applying more to the whole utterance than to the specific word it grammatically modifies.
- No fucking way.
- Offensive, annoying or worthless.
- Get your fucking car out of the way.
- Synonyms:
- cocking, no good, pesky, aggravating, aggy, annoying, wretched, displeasing, bothersome, chagrining
Noun (2)
ducking (usually uncountable, plural duckings)
- The act of surreptitiously leaving a rubber duck on someone's parked Jeep as an act of kindness (see Jeep ducking).
- Parliament said she hopes ducking becomes a regular part of Jeep culture, similar to the notorious "Jeep wave" that Wrangler owners are known to do on the road to say "hi" to one another.2020 July 29, Susannah Sudborough, “It may sound quacky, but Jeep ducking is a real thing and it's right here in Taunton”, in Taunton Daily Gazette, Taunton, Massachusetts, archived from the original...
Forms of ducking
| plural | duckings |
|---|
Origin of ducking
By surface analysis, duck + -ing.
Suggested by predictive text or autocorrect on some devices.
Nominalization of duck (verb), a denominal verb of duck (noun), from ellipsis of rubber duck.
Words formed from ducking
Phrases with ducking
Words that rhyme with ducking
Questions about ducking
- What does ducking mean?
- Ducking means an instance of ducking down, e.g. to hide.
- What is ducking the present participle and gerund of?
- Ducking is the present participle and gerund of duck.
- What part of speech is ducking?
- Ducking is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ducking?
- Ducking is pronounced /ˈdʌkɪŋ/.
- What is the plural of ducking?
- The plural of ducking is duckings.
Words near ducking in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ducking (page history and authors); duck (page history and authors); fucking (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-ducking.ogg.
Cite this entry: “ducking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ducking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.