Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, esp. black, also shuck it) to defraud, to tease, to lie [shuck n. (1)].

1916		W. Thorin letter 4 Apr. in Weeks (ed.) Greater Love Hath No Man (1939) 123: I hit him fair on the nose and [...] I told him to come on the outside and I would finish the job, but it was nothing doing. I am glad though, that he didn’t, because he was a lot bigger than I, but I am like our dear Mr. Wilson, I am shucking the bluff and getting away with it.
1930		M. West Babe Gordon (1934) 178: Stop yo’ shuckin,’ Miss Gordon.
1959		L. Lipton Holy Barbarians 25: I didn’t shuck the customers enough to please the crook who was running the car lot.
1961		G.L. Coon Meanwhile, Back at the Front (1962) 104: You’re shucking me.
1961		Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia xvii: shuck, to to deceive; to swindle, to put someone on.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 98: Who am I shucking? he wondered.
1967		R. Conot Rivers of Blood 161: [T]he Negro who often fools the white officer by ‘shucking it’ is much less likely to be successful with another Negro, who knows exactly what he is doing.
1969		S. Greenlee Spook who Sat by the Door (1972) 83: He had a tendency to shuck the world, to pretend mental stagnation while in actuality he possessed a methodical, analytical mind.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 66: shuck vt Trick, deceive, fool.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 355: Don’t shuck an old friend. They don’t violate for that sort of nitshit.
1984		Jackson Hole Guide (WY) 9 Oct. 16/2: ‘I’m afraid [...] that my friend Coot is engaging in shucking a dude’.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 109: Don’t shuck me, Nigger.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 124: I innocent of all this rebop you shuckin’ me with.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 24: You’re shucking me. Stop it.

2. (US black) to have sexual intercourse with [? shake v. (1)].

1964

B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 97: You’ve played the cuts and had your fun. [...] You even shuck my old lady, and that ain’t all, / you even carried her to the Allotment Ball.

3. to do something half-heartedly or deceptively; thus shucker n. [shuck n. (1)].

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 180: shuck with somebody (kwn Southwest, late ‘60s, fr sl shuck = to lie) to put on an act of passionate interest [...] to pretend to be erotically excited [...] Hustlers, looking at homosexuality as a sickness to be fleeced, call their insincere fooling around shucking with it.
1994		Rebennack & Rummel Under A Hoodoo Moon 147: Shine had a husky voice, too, but was a real singer, not a shucker like me.

4. (US campus) a euph. for suck v.¹ (7)

1973

Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 3: shucks – a euphemism for sucks: N.C. State shucks!

5. (US) to leave, to depart from.

2023

(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 418: She told me she was shucking L.A. for good.

6. see shuck down