"cuck" definition, meaning, and origin

Noun

A cuckold or cuckquean.
- Not the Horn-Plague, but something worse, Had drove the frighted Cucks from thence. - 1706, Edward Ward, Hudibras redivivus, I.10:
- We bounce from Bisset and Seymour’s increasingly happy shagging to Worsley, the willing cuck, watching on and, finally, the trial that Worsley brings against Bisset. - 2015 August 17, Filipa Jodelka, The Guardian:
- Jeff and Allison secretly live the "hotwife/cuckold" lifestyle. - 2015, Carter Saint, Coming Out As a Cuck:
A weakling.
- That silly cuck thinks she can beat me in a fight.
- He starts getting in my face. Thomas puts his hand on the dude’s chest to stop him. ‘Don’t touch me you cuck. Wanna go outside?’ - 2016, Kumail Nanjiani, quoted in The Guardian, 12 November
- From there cuck evolved into a catch-all way of abusing men who might be otherwise referred to as “betas”. - 2017 August 3, Tim Squirrell, “The evolution of "cuck" shows that different far-right groups are learning the...
One who meekly and submissively acts against their own interests, or those of their own race, gender, class, religion, etc.
- The feel-good petition was only supported by cucks.

Clipping of cuckold or cuckquean. The sense of weakling, race traitor, etc. apparently originated on 4chan in 2014 and migrated to Reddit soon after.

To cuckold or cuckquean, to be sexually unfaithful towards.
To turn into a cuckold or cuckquean, to cheat with the partner of (someone).
To weaken or emasculate, to render pathetic.
To fool and thus lower the status of, to exploit the trust or tolerance of (to one's own benefit and the other's disadvantage); to make into a cuck (one who acts against their own interests).
- It’s redolent of the way establishment conservatives lost the culture war in the first place, by bowing to the opposition, allowing others to play them for fools, and contenting themselves with the occasional scraps...

To punish (someone) by putting them in a cucking stool.
- Follow the law, and you can cucke mee, spare not. - 1611, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girle:

Back-formation from cucking stool.