fine plaster used as a wall coating, 1590s, from Italian stucco, from a Germanic source (compare Old High German stukki "crust, piece, fragment"), from Proto-Germanic *stukkjam, from PIE root *(s)teu- (1) "to push, stick, knock, beat" (see stock, n.1). The verb is attested from 1726. Related: Stuccoed; stuccoing.