fluke – English noun declension

English noun forms of fluke

Noun: fluke
Singularfluke
Pluralflukes; fluke

Sample Sentences

  • We've classified by a fluke; actually, the first goal was just a total fluke.
  • “[…] That's the first time in the history of Bierce's Cove that two men made that jump on the same sea. And all the risk was yours, coming last.”
  • “It was a fluke,” Billy insisted. [1913 October, Jack London, chapter VIII, in The Valley of the Moon, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC:]
  • Three of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes! That was no fluke. [1920, Zane Grey, “The Rube”, in The Redheaded Outfield:]
  • "And I say," said Wimsey, "that it would be better for her to be hanged outright than to live and have everybody think her a murderess who got off by a fluke." [1930, Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison:]
  • It's Christmas at ground zero / Now the missiles are on their way / What a crazy fluke / We're gonna get nuked / On this jolly holiday [1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!:]
  • And before I forget... that was one amazing kiss, mister. Could have been a fluke, though. Guess we have to keep trying. [2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Garden:]
  • That this was not just a fluke was proved by a further profit the following year, albeit cut due to industrial action - jam at last! [2020 January 2, David Clough, “How InterCity came back from the brink”, in Rail, page 69:]

Etymology

Unknown, perhaps dialectal. It seems to have originally referred to a lucky shot at billiards. Possibly connected to sense 3, referring to whales' use of flukes to move rapidly. Possibly derived from German Glück (“luck, good fortune, happiness”). See: German Nouns 'Glück'.

Verbs referencing "fluke"

German Nouns Fluke.