In 7 chock(e. [Goes with CHUCK v.2; in sense 1 perh. immed. f. F. choc (see SHOCK).]
1. A slight, sudden blow or upward tap under the chin.
1611. Cotgr., Mantonniere, a chocke, or bob vnder the chinne. Ibid., Haulse-bec … a blow, or chocke vnder the chinne.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic. (1779), II. xlv. 84. He gave his antagonist a chuck under the chin.
1840. Hood, Kilmansegg, cclxviii. There’s a double chuck at a double chin.
1847. Le Fanu, T. O’Brien, 275. A few additional chucks by the throat.
2. A short, abrupt movement, a toss, a jerk.
c. 1843. Sir C. Napier, in Life (1885), vi. 206. I held half my reins … designing to give Red Rover a chuck that should put his head between me and the coming blow.
1861. Trollope, Framley P., III. ix. 165. Griselda gave her head a little chuck which was produced by two different operations of her mind.
3. A toss or throw from the hand. (colloq.)
4. Short for CHUCK-FARTHING, and app. extended to other games of the nature of pitch-and-toss.
1711. Brit. Apollo, III. No. 127. 3/2. These two being at the Game we call Chuck.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 509, ¶ 2. To chace the lads from chuck, that the beadle might seize their copper.
1741–3. Wesley, Jrnl. (1749), 95. Men, women and children met together, to dance, fight, curse and swear, and play at chuck, ball, span-farthing, or whatever came next to hand.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 204. What is money good for? You cannot eat it … it is of none other use than to play at chuck, or spin upon a table to amuse a child.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 174. With chuck and marbles wearing Sunday through.
5. Sc. One of the small rounded quartz pebbles used in the game of check-stone or ‘chuckie-stanes’; hence chucks a name of this game; ‘a marble used at the game of taw, Dumfr.’ (Jam.). Also chuckstone.
1822. Scott, Nigel, v. When a wise man is with fules and bairns, he maun e’en play at the chucks.
1827. Carlyle, Germ. Romance, II. 115. Gravel, among which were … large bits of chuckstone, and other pebbles.
1879. Jamieson, Chuckie-stanes, chucks, a game played by girls. A number of pebbles are spread on a flat stone; one of them is tossed up, and a certain number must be gathered, and the falling one caught by the same hand.
