lurch
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A sudden or unsteady movement.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lurchIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɝtʃ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A sudden or unsteady movement.
A predicament or difficult situation.
A double score in cribbage for the winner when their adversary has not yet pegged their 31st hole.
An old game played with dice and counters; a variety of the game of tables.
verb
To make such a sudden, unsteady movement.
transitive
To defeat in the game of cribbage with a lurch (double score as explained under noun entry).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A sudden or unsteady movement.
Used this way, lurch is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Sudden and forceful
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use lurch
- “The ship suddenly lurched to the left.”verb
- “The truck lurched down the road.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
In a difficult or vulnerable position.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.