Meaning of Lurch | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A lift or heave.
   dialectal
2. A predicament or difficult situation.
   countable, uncountable
3. A sudden or unsteady movement.
4. An old game played with dice and counters; a variety of the game of tables.
   countable, uncountable
5. A double score in cribbage for the winner when their adversary has not yet pegged their 31st hole.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“the lurch of a ship, or of a drunkard”

“The ship was driving rapidly towards the rocky coast, against which she must have been dashed to pieces had she kept afloat a few minutes longer, but she gave a lurch and went down, rose again for an instant, and with another lurch sank, and all was over,—and there were nearly two hundred and fifty human beings struggling with the waves.”

“Yet I hoped by grouting at the earth below it to be able to dislodge the stone at the side; but while I was considering how best to begin, the candle flickered, the wick gave a sudden lurch to one side, and I was left in darkness.”

“to leave someone in the lurch”

“August 14, 1784, Horace Walpole, letter to the Hon. H. S. Conway Lady Blandford has cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.”

CEFR level