Word.ws English Dictionary

lurch

UK/lɜːt͡ʃ//lɜɹt͡ʃ/

lurch noun: a sudden or unsteady movement.

Noun (1)

lurch (plural lurches)

  1. A sudden or unsteady movement.
    • the lurch of a ship, or of a drunkard
    • The ship was driving rapidly towards the rocky coast, against which she must have been dashed to pieces had she kept afloat a few minutes longer, but she gave a lurch and went down, rose again for an instant, and with another lurch sank, and all was over,—and there were nearly two hundred and fifty...1850, William O. S. Gilly, “The Tribune”, in Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy […] , London: John W. Parker

Verb (1)

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

  1. To make such a sudden, unsteady movement.
    • It occurred to me there was no time to lose, and dodging the boom as it once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft and down the companion stairs into the cabin.1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Strike the Jolly Roger”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
    • The incident made it think, apparently, that the neighborhood was dangerous, for it slowly lurched off through the wood, followed by its mate and its three enormous infants.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

Verb (2)

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

  1. (obsolete) To swallow or eat greedily; to devour; hence, to swallow up.
    • Too far off from great cities, which may hinder business; too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh everything dear.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Building”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC

Verb (3)

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

  1. (dialectal, intransitive) To evade by stooping; to lurk; lie in wait; go about in a sneaking way.
  2. (dialectal, intransitive) To take by surprise; to unexpectedly detain.
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To rob.
    • And in the brunt of seventeen battles since / He lurched all swords of the garland.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Noun (2)

lurch (plural lurches)

  1. (dialectal) A lift or heave.

Noun (3)

lurch (countable and uncountable, plural lurches)

  1. A predicament or difficult situation.
    • to leave someone in the lurch
  2. An old game played with dice and counters; a variety of the game of tables.
  3. A double score in cribbage for the winner when their adversary has not yet pegged their 31st hole.
    • August 14, 1784, Horace Walpole, letter to the Hon. H. S. Conway
      Lady Blandford has cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.

Verb (4)

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

  1. (transitive) To defeat in the game of cribbage with a lurch (double score as explained under noun entry).
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To leave someone in the lurch; to cheat.
    • Never deceive or lurch the sincere communicant.1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London

lurch meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

lurch in Tamil

திடீர் அல்லது நிலையற்ற நகர்வு, அத்தகைய நகர்வை செய்

lurch in Urdu

ہار, حملہ کرنے کا انتظار, ہچکولا, انتظار, پٹائی, ہچکولا کھانا

lurch in Bengali

হঠাৎ একদিকে কাত হওয়া, টলমল করা, হঠাৎ ঝোক

lurch in Malayalam

stumble, stagger. wobble, sway
കാലിടറിനടക്കുക, ആടിയാടിനടക്കുക, ആടിനടക്കുക, ചാഞ്ചാടുക, ചാളുക, വേച്ചുവേച്ചുനടക്കുക
reel, sway, list
ഒരുവശത്തേക്കു ചായുക, ഒരുവശത്തേക്കു ചരിയുക, ചാഞ്ചാടുക, അലങ്ങുക, അലുങ്ങുക, ഉലയുക
More languagesFewer languages
lurch in Kannada
ಹೊರಳುವುದು, ವಾಲುವುದು, ತತ್ತರಿಸುವುದು, ತತ್ತರ

Examples of lurch in a sentence

  • Number One lurched forward, his arms outstretched toward the horror stricken girl.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 3, in The Monster Men, published 1929:
  • He lurched against a table at which three soldiers were sitting and knocked over a glass of beer.1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLVII, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

All 40 example sentences with lurch

Forms of lurch

Noun
plurallurches
Verb
third-person singular presentlurches
present participlelurching
past participlelurched
pastlurched
alternative formlorch

Plural of lurch: lurches

Origin of lurch

Originally a nautical term, found in lee-larches (“the sudden and violent rolls of a ship to the leeward in high seas”), of unknown origin. Possibly the same as lurch (“to move stealthily, evade by stooping”) (see below), or from French lâcher (“to let go”).

From Middle English *lurchen (recorded only in Middle English lurcare, lurcard (“glutton”)), from Old French *lurcher, from Latin lurcō (“eat greedily, guzzle”), of uncertain origin. Compare Middle High German slurken (“to slurp”) (whence German schlurken).

From Middle English lorchen, variant of Middle English lurken (“to lurk”). More at lurk.

Words formed from lurch

Phrases with lurch

Words that rhyme with lurch

2 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lurch

What does lurch mean?
Lurch means a sudden or unsteady movement.
What is lurch in Tamil?
Lurch in Tamil is திடீர் அல்லது நிலையற்ற நகர்வு, அத்தகைய நகர்வை செய். See Lurch meaning in Tamil.
How do you use lurch in a sentence?
Number One lurched forward, his arms outstretched toward the horror stricken girl.
What part of speech is lurch?
Lurch can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce lurch?
Lurch is pronounced /lɜːt͡ʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of lurch?
The plural of lurch is lurches.

Words near lurch in the dictionary

  1. lur
  2. lurasidone
  3. Luray
  4. Luray II
  5. lurbinectedin
  6. lurch
  7. lurched
  8. lurcher
  9. lurchers
  10. lurches
  11. lurcheth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lurch (page history and authors); lurch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lurch (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Lurch (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lurch (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); lurch (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-lurch.ogg.

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