different between setback vs lurch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?tbæk/

Etymology

From the verb phrase set back.

Noun

setback (plural setbacks)

1. An obstacle, delay, disadvantage, blow (an adverse event which retards or prevents progress towards a desired outcome)

   After some initial setbacks, the expedition went safely on its way.

2. (US) The required distance between a structure and a road.
3. (architecture) A step-like recession in a wall.

   Setbacks were initially used for structural reasons, but now are often mandated by land use codes.

4. An offset to the temperature setting of a thermostat to cover a period when more or less heating is required than usual.
   • 1980, Popular Science (volume 217, number 4)

     Fuel savings from thermostat setbacks have long been accepted as fact, but little documentation existed to support it.

5. (possibly archaic) A backset; a countercurrent; an eddy.
6. (archaic) A backset; a check; a repulse; a relapse.

Translations

Anagrams

• backest, backets, backset

English

Pronunciation

• (US) enPR: lûrch, IPA^(key): /l?t??/
• Rhymes: -??(r)t?

Etymology 1

Originally a nautical term, possibly from French lacher (“to let go”).

Noun

lurch (plural lurches)

1. A sudden or unsteady movement.

   the lurch of a ship, or of a drunkard

   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet Chapter 4

     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.

Translations

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. To make such a sudden, unsteady movement.

Translations

See also

• leave someone in the lurch
• Lurch in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Etymology 2

From Latin lurc?re.

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. (obsolete) To swallow or eat greedily; to devour; hence, to swallow up.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Building

     Too far off from great cities, which may hinder business; too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh everything dear.

Etymology 3

From French lourche (“deceived, embarrassed; also the name of a game”), from Proto-West Germanic *lort (“left; left-handed; crooked; bent; warped; underhanded; deceitful; limping”). Cognate to English lirt.

Noun

lurch (countable and uncountable, plural lurches)

1. An old game played with dice and counters; a variety of the game of tables.
2. A double score in cribbage for the winner when his/her adversary has not yet pegged their 31st hole.
   • August 14, 1784, Horace Walpole, letter to the Hon. H. S. Conway

     Lady Blandford has cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.

Verb

lurch (third-person singular simple present lurches, present participle lurching, simple past and past participle lurched)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To leave someone in the lurch; to cheat.

   • Never deceive or lurch the sincere communicant.

2. (obsolete, intransitive) To rob.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To evade by stooping; to lurk.
4. (transitive) To defeat in the game of cribbage with a lurch (double score as explained under noun entry).

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “lurch”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• churl