LURCH
What does "LURCH" mean?
A sudden unsteady tilt or stagger to one side.
Meanings
- A sudden, abrupt, unsteady movement. The train started with a lurch that spilled half her coffee.
- To move suddenly and unsteadily; to stagger. He lurched across the deck as the ship rolled.
- A decisive losing position in the old game of cribbage and lurch; surviving in the idiom 'leave in the lurch'. When the partner quit, she was left in the lurch. archaic
Did you know?
- There are two unrelated 'lurch' words: the stagger you do on a rocking boat, and the one in 'left in the lurch' - that second one is the wreck of 'lourche', a 16th-century French board game where being 'in the lurch' meant a crushing, hopeless loss.
Word origin
The 'stagger' sense is of uncertain origin, possibly nautical. The phrase 'leave in the lurch' comes from a separate older 'lurch' (a heavy defeat), borrowed from French 'lourche', a 16th-century board game.
Remember it
LURCH = the ship's sudden ChURCH-bell tilt; or hear 'lunge' + 'church' colliding as the deck heaves.
A little poem
The bus pulls off; the standing crowd, as one,
lurches like wheat the wind has just begun.
couplet
Wordplay
- My old van starts with such a lurch, I've stopped calling it a commute and started calling it a launch.
What it teaches
A lurch is just momentum arriving before balance does; steady yourself by widening your stance, not stopping the world.
Quick facts
What does LURCH mean?
A sudden unsteady tilt or stagger to one side.
Is LURCH a valid word?
Yes — LURCH is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is LURCH?
LURCH has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does LURCH come from?
The 'stagger' sense is of uncertain origin, possibly nautical. The phrase 'leave in the lurch' comes from a separate older 'lurch' (a heavy defeat), borrowed from French 'lourche', a 16th-century board game.
What can LURCH teach us?
A lurch is just momentum arriving before balance does; steady yourself by widening your stance, not stopping the world.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.