Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use duck in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Duck means to quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something. Example: “I'm just going to duck into the loo for a minute; can you hold my bag?”

Examples of duck by meaning

verbTo quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.

  • Rimmer ducked his body low into his chair, so just his head remained above the table top, and peered past the backs of the examinees in front of him, waiting for the adjudicator to make his move.1989, Grant Naylor, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers

verbTo 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
  • That was the moment, but Senate Republicans ducked it.2024 January 19, Jonathan Freedland, “There is still a way to stop Donald Trump – but time is running out”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

verbTo 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

verbTo enter a place for a short moment.

  • I'm just going to duck into the loo for a minute; can you hold my bag?

nounAny of certain aquatic birds of the family Anatidae, having a flat bill and webbed feet, distinguished from swans and...

  • The payment processor’s layoffs and the curious incident of the duck were first reported by Business Insider.2025 January 23, John Towfighi, “Stripe accidentally sends image of cartoon duck to laid-off employees”, in CNN

nounSynonym of bitch (“a man forced or coerced into a homosexual relationship, especially in prison”).

  • I was subjected to being what they call a punk or a duck, which is someone else's power trip, that's all.1986 April 19, Michael Rathbone, “Tell Someone”, in Gay Community News, page 4

nounA tightly-woven cotton or linen fabric, often used as sailcloth.

  • He was dressed in a Jaeger vest—a pair of blue duck trousers, fastened round the waist with a plaited leather belt.1912, Katherine Mansfield, “The Woman At The Store”, in Selected Short Stories

nounTrousers made of such material.

  • And they would go up and find old Allington, in white ducks, standing in the fringe of long grasses and cow-parsley on the other edge of the island, looking to his poultry or his rabbits.1918 March, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], chapter III, in The Return of the Soldier, 1st American edition, New York...
  • A native servant emerged, anonymous in his white ducks and red fez, to say My Player was wanted on the telephone.1954, Doris Lessing, A Proper Marriage, HarperPerennial, published 1995, page 74

More sentences with duck

  • They sat on a park bench and tossed bread crumbs to the ducks and pigeons.From the entry bench
  • If you get any taller, you'll start having to duck through doorways!From the entry any
  • We went by bus down to the water to feed the ducks.From the entry by
  • When the new baby's rubber duck squeaked at the wedding, hilarity ensued.From the entry hilarity
  • If you can't fix it with duck tape, it's not worth fixing.From the entry duck tape
  • A rubber duck and other toys were afloat in the bath.From the entry afloat
  • They gave him a ducking in the river as a punishment.From the entry ducking
  • There were ducks, geese, swans, you name it on the lake.From the entry you name it
  • Jackson was run out for a duck in the first over.From the entry run out
  • She's a dead duck if she starts flirting with my boyfriend!From the entry dead duck
  • The government decision meant that the proposed boycott of South African goods was a dead duck.From the entry dead duck
  • She started skating and learned quickly, like a duck takes to water.From the entry like a duck takes to water
  • Because of the president's lame duck status, the presidency was often hampered by congressional actions.From the entry presidency
  • For God's sake, Sergeant, we need to get to cover – we're sitting ducks out here.From the entry sitting duck
  • They are dead ducks if they are still in the car when it explodes!From the entry dead ducks
  • Because a "decoy duck" is not a duck, "decoy" is an alienans adjective.From the entry alienans
  • There are two ducks on the pond for the cleanup hitter.From the entry ducks on the pond
  • Waterbirds, such as the duck or the gull, are common in the area.From the entry such as
  • The room's bizarreness was underscored by the massive rubber duck serving as a conference table.From the entry bizarreness
  • After a bad day of duck hunting nothing goes down better than a good duck fart.From the entry duck fart
  • The hunter managed to pip three ducks from his blind.From the entry pip
  • Did you hear that duck make a quack?From the entry quack
  • We selected duck pâté and chicken goujons from the menu.From the entry menu
  • Congressman Jones was a lame duck and did not vote on many issues that were important to his constituents.From the entry lame duck
  • If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.From the entry quack like a duck
  • Ducks on the pond. Who is up?From the entry ducks on the pond
  • England's batsmen were nothing more than sitting ducks waiting to be picked off by these unerringly accurate marksmen.From the entry pick off
  • Whoa! Did somebody step on a duck?From the entry step on a duck
  • Surhoff blooped a weak duck fart into shallow right field.From the entry duck fart
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:milkshake duck.From the entry milkshake duck

Meaning of duck

  1. verb To quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.
  2. verb To lower (something) into water; to thrust or plunge under liquid and suddenly withdraw.
  3. verb To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to plunge one's head into water or other liquid.

Full definition of duck

Questions about duck in a sentence

How do you use duck in a sentence?
Duck is used as a verb and noun. For example: “I'm just going to duck into the loo for a minute; can you hold my bag?”
What is a short sentence with duck?
“Ducks on the pond. Who is up?”
What does duck mean?
Duck means to quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: duck (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use duck in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/duck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.