Other forms: lurching, lurched, lurches
To lurch is to move suddenly and unsteadily to one side. A bus pulling away, a drunk crossing a room.
The movement is uncontrolled, which is why it suits ships, vehicles and people who have lost their footing. It works figuratively for anything that changes direction badly — a government lurching from crisis to crisis, a story that lurches in tone. There is also a fixed phrase with a quite separate origin, since to leave somebody in the lurch means to abandon them at the worst possible moment.
French
lâcher — to let go
English, today
lurch
Built from
Originally a nautical term, found in lee-larches (“the sudden and violent rolls of a ship to the leeward in high seas”), of unknown origin. Possibly the same as lurch (“to move stealthily, evade by stooping”) (see below), or from French lâcher (“to let go”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Moving
First appears in chapter 23 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word