tuck in
verb
Simple meaning
Eat up; usually refers to a considerable quantity of food.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tuhkinSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʌkɪn
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.
verb
Eat up; usually refers to a considerable quantity of food
“My son tucked in a whole pizza.”
intransitive
To eat heartily.
transitive
To pull the blankets or duvet up over (someone in bed); to put (someone) to bed.
transitive
To push (the fabric at the bottom of a shirt) under the pants.
To place in a small space.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Eat up; usually refers to a considerable quantity of food
Used this way, tuck in is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This sense is about measurement, so it is used where accuracy is the point.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
- Academic writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.