pluck
/plʌk/
"pluck" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pluck” has 8 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #24,547. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #24,547
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To pull something sharply; to pull something out
Corpus desk
Index EN-pluck · pluck · English
pluck · rank #24,547 · 8 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #24,547
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH Porte
Nearest frequency peer: Porte (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “pluck”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- pinning
pinning
75,457 corpus weight
- Pisa
Pisa
75,456 corpus weight
- pluck
pluck
75,454 corpus weight
- Porte
Porte
75,453 corpus weight
- postdoctoral
postdoctoral
75,452 corpus weight
- POTUS
POTUS
75,451 corpus weight
What this shows “pluck” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pluck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /plʌk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #24,547 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “pluck”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around pluck (IPA /plʌk/), averb. Corpus frequency is #24,547 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 9 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for pluck, with forms such as "lpuck", "plcuk", and "plluck". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "plus", "punk", "plug", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English plucken, plukken, plockien, from Old English pluccian, ploccian (“to pluck, pull away, tear”), also Old English plyċċan ("to pluck, pull, snatch; pluck with desire"), from Proto-West Germanic *plukkōn, from Proto-Germanic *plukkōną, *plu… The correct English form is pluck, spelled P-L-U-C-K.
Definition
- 1To pull something sharply; to pull something out
- 2To take or remove (someone) quickly from a particular place or situation.
- 3To play (a single string on a musical instrument) by pulling and then releasing it, such as on a guitar.
- 4To remove feathers from (a bird).
- 5To rob, steal from; to cheat or swindle (someone).
- 6To play a string instrument pizzicato.
- 7To pull or twitch sharply.
- 8To reject (a student) after they fail an examination for a degree.
- 9Of a glacier: to transport individual pieces of bedrock by means of gradual erosion through freezing and thawing.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pluck appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
She plucked the phone from her bag and dialled.
The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile was clearly outlined.
Etymology
From Middle English plucken, plukken, plockien, from Old English pluccian, ploccian (“to pluck, pull away, tear”), also Old English plyċċan ("to pluck, pull, snatch; pluck with desire"), from Proto-West Germanic *plukkōn, from Proto-Germanic *plukkōną, *plukkijaną (“to pluck”), of uncertain and disputed origin. Perhaps related to Old English pullian (“to pull, draw; pluck off; snatch”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian plukje (“to pluck”), West Frisian plôkje (“to pick, pluck”), Dutch plukken (“to pluck”), Limburgish plógte (“to pluck”), Low German plukken (“to pluck”), German pflücken (“to pluck, pick”), Danish and Norwegian plukke (“to pick”), Swedish plocka (“to pick, pluck, cull”), Icelandic plokka, plukka (“to pluck, pull”). More at pull. An alternative etymology suggests Proto-Germanic *plukkōną, *plukkijaną may have been borrowed from an assumed Vulgar Latin *pilūc(i)cāre, a derivative of Latin pilāre (“deprive of hair, make bald, depilate”), from pilus (“hair”). The Oxford English Dictionary, however, finds difficulties with this and cites gaps in historical evidence. The noun sense of "heart, liver, and lights of an animal" comes from it being plucked out of the carcass after the animal is killed; the sense of "fortitude, boldness" derives from this meaning, originally being a boxing slang denoting a prize-ring, with semantic development from "heart", the symbol of courage, to "fortitude, boldness".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- lpuck
- plcuk
- plluck
- plucck
- pluckk
- plukc
- ppluck
- pulck
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of pluck - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pluck", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).