lurch

1. 1.

   an unsteady uneven gait

   Synonymsstumblestagger

   Broadergait
2. 2.

   a decisive defeat in a game (especially in cribbage)

   Broaderdefeat
3. 3.

   abrupt up-and-down motion (as caused by a ship or other conveyance)

   “the pitching and tossing was quite exciting”

   Synonymspitchpitching

   Broadermotion

   Narrowerrock

   ship

4. 4.

   the act of moving forward suddenly

   Synonymslunge

   Broadermotion

Other forms of lurch

plural

lurches·

past tense

lurched·

present participle

lurching·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lurch

What does lurch mean?

lurch means "walk as if unable to control one's movements". That is the primary sense; the word has 9 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lurch?

lurch has 1 syllable: lurch. In IPA it is /ˈlɝtʃ/.

What is another word for lurch?

Close synonyms include stagger, reel, keel, swag, careen. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is lurch a common word?

lurch is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.