tuck
/tʌk/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Ireland/tʊk/
tuck verb: to pull or gather up (an item of fabric). Also the ellipsis of Mach tuck.
Verb
tuck (third-person singular simple present tucks, present participle tucking, simple past and past participle tucked)
- To pull or gather up (an item of fabric).
- To push into a snug position; to place somewhere safe, or handy, or somewhat hidden.
- Tuck in your shirt. I tucked in the sheet. He tucked the $10 bill into his shirt pocket.
- She tucked her hair behind her ear.
- To eat; to consume.
- To fit neatly.
- The sofa tucks nicely into that corner.
- Kenwood House is tucked into a corner of Hampstead Heath.
- To curl into a ball; to fold up and hold one's legs.
- The diver tucked, flipped, and opened up at the last moment.
- To sew folds; to make a tuck or tucks in.
- to tuck a dress
- To full, as cloth.
- Of a drag queen, trans woman, etc., to conceal one's penis and testicles, as with a gaff or by fastening them down with adhesive tape.
- Honey, have you tucked today? We don't wanna see anything nasty down there.
- To keep the thumb in position while moving the rest of the hand over it to continue playing piano keys that are outside the thumb (when playing scales).
Noun (1)
tuck (countable and uncountable, plural tucks)
- An act of tucking; a pleat or fold.
- A fold in fabric that has been stitched in place from end to end, as to reduce the overall dimension of the fabric piece.
- A curled position.
- A plastic surgery technique to remove excess skin.
- tummy tuck
- The act of keeping the thumb in position while moving the rest of the hand over it to continue playing keys that are outside the thumb.
- A curled position, with the shins held towards the body.
- The afterpart of a ship, immediately under the stern or counter, where the ends of the bottom planks are collected and terminate by the tuck-rail.
- Food, especially snack food.
- 'What on earth do Coker and his parcel of tuck matter to us? You're not thinking of snooping his tuck, I suppose, like Bunter.'1956, Charles Hamilton, The Banishing of Billy Bunter
Noun (2)
tuck (plural tucks)
- A rapier, a sword.
- […] with force he labour'd / To free's blade from retentive scabbard; / And after many a painful pluck, / From rusty durance he bail'd tuck […]1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678...
- [...] dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly. [...]c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
Noun (3)
tuck (plural tucks)
Proper noun capitalized: Tuck
Tuck (countable and uncountable, plural Tucks)
- A surname.
- A diminutive of the male given name Tucker.
- An unincorporated community in Daviess County, Kentucky, United States.
Also used as
tuck is also the ellipsis of Mach tuck.
tuck meaning in Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada
tuck in Marathi
- push the end of fabric out of sight
- खोचणे khocṇe, खोवणे khovṇe
- place somewhere safe or hidden
- खोचणे khocṇe, खोवणे khovṇe
tuck in Telugu
- టక్ చెయ్యడానికి
tuck in Malayalam
- ടക്ക് ചെയ്യാൻ, ടക്ക് ചെയ്യുക
tuck in Kannada
- ಟಕ್ ಮಾಡಲು
Examples of tuck in a sentence
- Little Mary was sounding very sleepy, so I tucked her in bed.
- A dress shirt should be tucked in, but a t-shirt can be worn out.
- A scorecard and a short pencil were tucked into his breast pocket.
Antonyms of tuck
Forms of tuck
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | tucks |
| present participle | tucking |
| past participle | tucked |
| past | tucked |
| Noun | |
| plural | tucks |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Tucks |
Origin of tuck
From Middle English tuken, touken (“to torment, to stretch (cloth)”), from Old English tūcian (“to torment, vex”) and Middle Dutch tucken (“to tuck”), both from Proto-Germanic *teuh-, *teug- (“to draw, pull”) (compare also *tukkōną), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to pull”). Akin to Old High German zucchen (“to snatch, tug”), zuchôn (“to jerk”), German Low German tuken (“to tug, pluck, grab and pull towards”), Old English tēon (“to draw, pull, train”). Doublet of touch.
From Old French estoc (“rapier”), from Italian stocco (“a truncheon, a short sword”). Doublet of estoc.
Compare tocsin.
Words formed from tuck
Phrases with tuck
Words that rhyme with tuck
39 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about tuck
- What does tuck mean?
- Tuck means to pull or gather up (an item of fabric).
- What is tuck in Marathi?
- Tuck in Marathi is खोचणे (khocṇe), खोवणे (khovṇe). See Tuck meaning in Marathi.
- What part of speech is tuck?
- Tuck can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tuck?
- Tuck is pronounced /tʌk/.
- What is the past tense of tuck?
- The past tense of tuck is tucked.
Words near tuck in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tuck (page history and authors); Tuck (page history and authors); tuck (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tuck (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tuck (Kannada, 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-us-tuck.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tuck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tuck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.