diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
index d644a995a4876..e745bf3f5feed 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
@@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ Timezones
 Numeric
 ^^^^^^^
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.floordiv` with ``axis=0`` not treating division-by-zero like :meth:`Series.floordiv` (:issue:`31271`)
--
+- Bug in :meth:`to_numeric` with string argument ``"uint64"`` and ``errors="coerce"`` silently fails (:issue:`32394`)
 -
 
 Conversion
diff --git a/pandas/_libs/lib.pyx b/pandas/_libs/lib.pyx
index 61d6a660a0357..feccb447c5112 100644
--- a/pandas/_libs/lib.pyx
+++ b/pandas/_libs/lib.pyx
@@ -2024,8 +2024,6 @@ def maybe_convert_numeric(ndarray[object] values, set na_values,
             except (TypeError, ValueError) as err:
                 if not seen.coerce_numeric:
                     raise type(err)(f"{err} at position {i}")
-                elif "uint64" in str(err):  # Exception from check functions.
-                    raise
 
                 seen.saw_null()
                 floats[i] = NaN
diff --git a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
index 48ae1f67297af..b01747ef010c1 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py
@@ -507,6 +507,13 @@ def test_convert_numeric_int64_uint64(self, case, coerce):
         result = lib.maybe_convert_numeric(case, set(), coerce_numeric=coerce)
         tm.assert_almost_equal(result, expected)
 
+    def test_convert_numeric_string_uint64(self):
+        # GH32394
+        result = lib.maybe_convert_numeric(
+            np.array(["uint64"], dtype=object), set(), coerce_numeric=True
+        )
+        assert np.isnan(result)
+
     @pytest.mark.parametrize("value", [-(2 ** 63) - 1, 2 ** 64])
     def test_convert_int_overflow(self, value):
         # see gh-18584