English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Verb

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ducking

  1. present participle and gerund of duck

Noun

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ducking (countable and uncountable, plural duckings)

  1. An instance of ducking down, e.g. to hide.
  2. An instance of ducking (a person in water, etc).
    They gave him a ducking in the river as a punishment.

Derived terms

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Etymology 2

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Suggested by predictive text or autocorrect on some devices.[1][2]

Adjective

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ducking (not comparable)

  1. (slang, humorous) Euphemistic form of fucking.
    • 2015, El Castor, “Re: China sending fighter jets to Syria to assist Russia”, in soc.retirement (Usenet):
      You are the ducking idiot here.
    • 2023 June 7, Callie Holtermann, quoting Craig Federighi, “Apple Knows You Didn’t Mean to Type ‘Ducking’”, in The New York Times[3], →ISSN:
      “In those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president for software engineering.

Etymology 3

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Nominalization of duck (verb), a denominal verb of duck (noun), from ellipsis of rubber duck, from rubber +‎ duck (noun).

Noun

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ducking (plural duckings)

  1. The act of surreptitiously leaving a rubber duck on someone's parked Jeep as an act of kindness (see Jeep ducking).
    • 2020 July 29, Susannah Sudborough, “It may sound quacky, but Jeep ducking is a real thing and it's right here in Taunton”, in Taunton Daily Gazette[4], Taunton, Massachusetts:
      Parliament said she hopes ducking becomes a regular part of Jeep culture, similar to the notorious "Jeep wave" that Wrangler owners are known to do on the road to say "hi" to one another.
    • 2022 September 13, Breana Noble, “'World's largest rubber duck' at Detroit auto show celebrates Jeep 'ducking' movement”, in The Detroit News[5]:
      She's gone out ducking with friends and family on shopping trips, in hospital parking lots and at Bishop International Airport in Flint, handing out more than 100 of the quackers.
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References

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  1. ^ Kif Leswing quoting Ken Kocienda (2018 September 16) “Why the iPhone keyboard inserts 'ducking' into your texts, according to the person who designed it”, in Business Insider[1], archived from the original on January 29, 2021:We decided to err on the side of not inserting obscenities into the text that might be going to your grandma
  2. ^ Todd Haselton (2018 April 3) “How to fix ‘ducking’ and other iPhone autocorrect problems”, in CNBC[2], archived from the original on January 29, 2021