pluck, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pluck n.¹

[SE pluck, the intestines of an animal that are plucked out during its cleaning. The term began as early boxing jargon, then moved into sl. Despite its apparent neutrality, the term was not used by women before the 1860s; 20C+ use is SE]

1. courage.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Pluck. Courage. He wants pluck: he is a coward.
1804		Sporting Mag. Mar. XXIII 352/1: That Coachman, by Jove, is a thumper; / But Tom has the pluck and the head.
1812		Egan Boxiana I 23: John Bull was not thus to be bounced out of his pluck.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 57: The shame, that aught but death should see him grass’d, / All fir’d the veteran’s pluck – with fury flush’d / Full on his light-limb’d customer he rush’d.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 6: You’ve got some pluck at last, but recollect you got it first in Surrey.
1824		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 16 Oct. 2/3–4: It seems he had more pluck than his fellow sufferer, and a better share of wind.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 448: If there’s the pluck of a man among you three, you’ll help me. Murder! Help!
1841		Sun. Flash (NY) 19 Sept. n.p.: Miss Twigg, who was by no means devoid of ‘pluck’.
1842		Egan ‘The Bould Yeoman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 138: But if you stop a game cove, who has little else than pluck, / Do not clean him out, and you’ll never want for luck.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 11: He is a handsome young dog of about three-and-twenty, with a heart as full of pluck as a bull.
1866		Broad Arrow Jack 22: You’ve got no pluck.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 223: Them as ’as any pluck in ’em turns savage.
1879		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Oct. 4/1: He maintained his pluck to the last, and died in apparently the same happy unconcerned manner that he had lived.
1883		T.B. Reed Willoughby Captains (1887) 88: There are one or two fellows [...] see he's no pluck, and so they think they can do what they like with him.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 39: He has the pluck of the devil.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 90: If the victim only has the pluck to refuse, he needn’t pay.
1902		A. Bennett Grand Babylon Hotel 141: ‘You’ve got a bit of pluck,’ he said, ‘but it won’t help you.’.
1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 83: You’ve pluck [...] I likes pluck.
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 70: You’ve simply got to have a bit of the good old bulldog pluck and defy the blighter.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 74: Pluck is always admired.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 27: He was a very strong and sturdy school-boy, and he had unlimited pluck.
1978		(con. 1940s) J.G. Farrell Singapore Grip 98: Yes, she’s a real Blackett. She has pluck.
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 29: Have a little pluck.
1999		Indep. Rev. 13 Aug. 10: The West [...] was won with guns and technology, not manly pluck.

2. (US) an order of beef stew.

1888

N.Y. Herald 1 Apr. 9/6: During his stay in the restaurant the reporter learned several things he never knew [...] That ‘pluck’ meant beef stew.

In derivatives

plucked (adj.)

brave, admirable.

1841-1883		implied in plucked ’un below.
1867		Sportsman 26 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] [T]he best ‘plucked’ Tom [cat] that ever escaped hanging, drowning, shooting, or beating to death.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Aug. 10/1: The winner, who is the son of an eminent lawyer, is as hard a hitter and as rare-plucked as his respected ‘governor.’.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Oct. 1/4: Sir Thomas Lipton, who is undoubtedly as well plucked a sportsman as ever trod deck.

In compounds

plucked ’un (n.)

a brave person, a ‘stout fellow’; usu. with preceding adj., such as rare, bad, good, real, hard etc.

1841		F.L.G. Swells Night Out n.p.: The incipient pugilists were certainly ‘plucked ones’.
1845		Bell’s Life in London 16 Nov. 7/4: The lady is a rare plucked ’un and cheered her busband up.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Nov. 81/2: Empedocles was a very loose character, but Oceanus was a Titan (tight ’un). The author is a pluck’d one.
1857		C. Kingsley Two Years Ago I 118: A terrible hard-plucked one [...] but, behanged if I don’t think he has a thirty-two pound shot under his ribs instead of a heart.
1861		H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 14/2: Bravo, Jack, you are a plucked one.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 8: We prigs like to see the rare plucked ’uns as much as decent folk hanker after Barnum and Blondin.
1873		Sl. Dict. 256: Plucked un a stout or brave fellow; ‘he’s a rare plucked un,’ i.e., he dares face anything.
1883		H. Smart Hard Lines II 31: You’re a rare plucked ’un, Annie.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 22/3: At El Teb he killed 40 Arabs with a shot-gun. This may not have been very valorous, but Burnaby was a rare plucked one, and would have been equally delighted to shoot Germans or Frenchmen.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 55: The old man [...] was a real good plucked one.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 190: Oh, I say, what a plucked ’un you are, Joey.
1902		A. Morrison Hole in the Wall (1947) 24: I knowed you make a plucked ’un.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 8 Feb. 4/4: ‘In course one feels sorry fer a poor cop [...] pertickler ef he was a plucked ’un, an' did his duty’.
1908		Magnet 15 Feb. 5: I know what you’ve done for me – what only a real plucked ’un would have done. You saved my life.
1920		Marvel 29 May 3: My boy’s not feeling well, but he’s a good plucked ’un.
1922		Kendrick Gaz. (ID) 7 Apr. 4/2: ‘Gord’s truth!’ she gasped ‘but there’s a rare plucked ’un’.
1936		‘Josephine Tey’ Shilling for Candles 107: ‘She didn’t like it, but she stuck it. A good plucked ’un, she is’.

In phrases

against the pluck (adv.)

reluctantly, ‘against the grain’.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

pluck up (v.)

to be brave, also as imper.

1828		Lytton Pelham III 306: For shame, Dawson [...] pluck up, and be a man; you are like a baby frightened by its nurse.
1890		B.L. Farjeon Mystery of M. Felix I 19: Pluck up, Mrs. Middlemore [...] there’s nothing wrong.

pluck n.1

In derivatives

In compounds

In phrases

pluck n.¹