shuck1

[shuhk] /ʃʌk/
noun
1.
a husk or pod, as the outer covering of corn, hickory nuts, chestnuts, etc.
2.
Usually, shucks. Informal. something useless or worthless:
They don't care shucks about the project.
3.
the shell of an oyster or clam.
verb (used with object)
4.
to remove the shucks from:
to shuck corn.
5.
to remove or discard as or like shucks; peel off:
to shuck one's clothes.
6.
Slang. to get rid of (often followed by off):
a bad habit I couldn't shuck off for years.
interjection
7.
shucks, Informal. (used as a mild exclamation of disgust or regret.)
Origin
1665-75; origin uncertain
Related forms
shucker, noun

shuck2

[shuhk] /ʃʌk/
verb (used with object), Slang.
1.
to deceive or lie to.
Origin
1955-60; origin uncertain; perhaps from exclamation shucks! (see shuck1) taken as a feigned sign of rural ignorance or a sham apology
Examples from the web for shuck
  • Afterward participants shuck and bake shellfish at an oyster festival that celebrates local commerce.
  • Nearby, there's a row of hammocks for the ultimate shuck-off-your-cares experience.
  • We started to realize that something was happening to our little shuck-shuck comedy.
  • Fruit feeding and oviposition commence with shuck split as the new cherries rapidly swell.
  • shuck clams, reserving half of the shells for use in the recipe as small baking receptacles.
British Dictionary definitions for shuck

shuck

/ʃʌk/
noun
1.
the outer covering of something, such as the husk of a grain of maize, a pea pod, or an oyster shell
verb (transitive)
2.
to remove the shucks from
3.
(informal, mainly US & Canadian) to throw off or remove (clothes, etc)
Derived Forms
shucker, noun
Word Origin
C17: American dialect, of unknown origin
Word Origin and History for shuck
v.

"to remove the shucks from," 1819, from or related to shuck (n.). Related: Shucked; shucking.

Many extended senses are from the notion of "stripping" an ear of corn, or from the capers associated with husking frolics; e.g. "to strip (off) one's clothes" (1848) and "to deceive, swindle, cheat, fool" (1959); phrase shucking and jiving "fooling, deceiving" is suggested from 1966, in U.S. black English, but cf. shuck (v.) a slang term among "cool musicians" for "to improvise chords, especially to a piece of music one does not know" (1957), and shuck (n.) "a theft or fraud," in use by 1950s among U.S. blacks.

[B]lack senses probably fr[om] the fact that black slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and this behavior, along with lying and teasing, became a part of the protective and evasive behavior normally adopted towards white people in "traditional" race relations; the sense of "swindle" is perhaps related to the mid-1800s term to be shucked out, "be defeated, be denied victory," which suggests that the notion of stripping someone as an ear of corn is stripped may be basic in the semantics. ["Dictionary of American Slang"]

n.

"husk, pod, shell," 1670s, of unknown origin. Cf. shuck (v.). Later used in reference to the shells of oysters and clams (1872). Figurative as a type of something worthless from 1836.

Slang definitions & phrases for shuck

shuck

modifier

Deceptive; fake: All he has to sell is a shuck and jive caricature of Blackness

noun

A theft or fraud; ripoff: Linear thinking was a total shuck (1950s+ Black)

verb
  1. To undress; strip oneself (1848+)
  2. (also shuck and jive) To joke; tease; fool around: