shucker

shucker

English

Etymology

shuck +‎ -er

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ʌkə(ɹ)

Noun

shucker (plural shuckers)

1. Someone who shucks oysters, clams, corn (maize), walnuts, etc.
   • 1927, Charles M. Russell, “Bill’s Shelby Hotel” in Trails Plowed Under,

     “Bill was born near Des Moines, Iowa, and as a boy was knowed as the champion lightweight corn shucker of Hog Bristle County. […] ”

   • 1988, Edmund White, The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, 1994, Chapter Nine,

     Everyone drank gimlets and the hostess hired an oyster shucker to come up from Baltimore with crates and crates of oysters.

2. (humorous) Someone who shucks or removes something.
   • 1986, Anastasia Toufexis, “Hey, Are You Rotating?” in Time, 14 April, 1986,

     The Kroger supermarket chain […] agreed to weigh out dieters as well as their vegetables. Some 12,000 hopeful pound shuckers herded through the chain’s groceries during the first weekend.

3. A device that shucks produce, such as a corn shucker.
   • 1983, Pico Iyer, “A Bumper Crop of Problems,” Time, 26 September, 1983,

     Friends with powerful connections helped him get a corn shucker; he knows of 80 other farmers who are on the waiting list for those machines in a region that is to receive only four during the next two years.

Anagrams

• chukers, huckers