buck

Etymology 1

From Middle English bukke, bucke, buc, from Old English buc, bucc, bucca (“he-goat, stag”), from Proto-West Germanic *bukk, *bukkō, from Proto-Germanic *bukkaz, *bukkô (“buck”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuǵ- (“ram”). Doublet of puck (billy goat). Currency-related senses hail from American English, a clipping of buckskin as a unit of trade among Indians and Europeans in frontier days (attested from 1748). The idea of rigidly standing implements is instilled by Dutch bok (“sawhorse”) as in zaagbok (“sawbuck”). The sense of an object indicating someone’s turn then occurred in American English, possibly originating from the game poker, where a knife (typically with a hilt made from a stag horn) was used as a place-marker to signify whose turn it was to deal. The place-marker was commonly referred to as a buck, which reinforced the term “pass the buck” used in poker, and eventually a silver dollar was used in place of a knife, which also led to a dollar being referred to as a buck.

noun

1. A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, shad and kangaroo.
2. (US) An uncastrated sheep, a ram.
3. A young buck; an adventurous, impetuous, dashing, or high-spirited young man.
   Swankey of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tête-à-tête with Amelia, and describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence […] 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 60, in Vanity Fair
4. (Britain, obsolete) A fop or dandy.
   This pusillanimous creature thinks himself, and would be thought, a buck. 1808, Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Connoisseur: The British Essayists, volume 32, page 93
   The Captain was then a buck and dandy, during the reign of those two successive dynasties, of the first rank of the second order ; the characteristic of which very respectable rank of fashionables I hold to be, that their spurs impinge upon the pavement oftener than upon the sides of a horse. 1825, Constantine Henry Phipps, I Zingari: The English in Italy, volume II, page 153
5. (US, dated, derogatory) A black or Native American man.
   She got so she'd rather have a buck nigger than me! 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred
   Her curly red hair loose from its combs hangin' down her back and her freckled skin bare, and a big ole nigger buck was doin' things to her! He'd always known that Hootch Carter raped and killed Becky Nell, never had reason to doubt it. 2009, Carol C. Morgan, Wind in the Cotton Fields, page 460
6. A unit of a particular currency
   1. (US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, informal) A dollar (one hundred cents).
      Can I borrow five bucks?
      Won't yer give Jake ten bucks ter buy hisself some close, so he look nice 'mong de gemmens? 1873, John Morris, Wanderings of a Vagabond
   2. (South Africa, informal) A rand (currency unit).
   3. (UK, slang, obsolete) A sixpence.
      three and a buck, i.e. three shillings and sixpence
   4. (informal, rare) A euro.
      Those fools are all probably sitting outside the pork store, recalling the incident about losing a thousand bucks with the fake Gajas, and chewing on their soggy stogies. 2010-12-14, Robert Hernandez, Slurp:Killer Wine, page 129
   5. (by extension, Australia, South Africa, US, informal) Money.
      Corporations will do anything to make a buck.
      It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation. 1987, Oliver Stone, Wall Street (motion picture), spoken by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)
   6. (finance) One million dollars.
7. (US, slang) One hundred.
   The police caught me driving a buck forty [140 miles per hour] on the freeway.
   That skinny guy? C'mon, he can't weigh more than a buck and a quarter [125 pounds].
8. Clipping of buckshot.
   He loaded the shotgun with two rounds of double-ought buck.
9. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.
   1. (UK, dialect) The body of a post mill, particularly in East Anglia. See Wikipedia:Windmill machinery.
   2. A frame on which firewood is sawed; a sawhorse; a sawbuck.
   3. A leather-covered frame used for gymnastic vaulting.
   4. A wood or metal frame used by automotive customizers and restorers to assist in the shaping of sheet metal bodywork.
      Plans in hand, Frank first paid his friend Raniero a visit, and the artisan quickly went to work on a fortified wood buck that would serve as a form for the Griffith 600 Series, as the car was formally known and marketed by Griffith Motors. 2010, Andrew McCredie, Paula Reisner, Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull, page 58
   5. (dated) An object of various types, placed on a table to indicate turn or status; such as a brass object, placed in rotation on a US Navy wardroom dining table to indicate which officer is to be served first, or an item passed around a poker table indicating the dealer or placed in the pot to remind the winner of some privilege or obligation when his or her turn to deal next comes.
      1. (by extension in the US, in certain metaphors or phrases) Blame; responsibility; scapegoating; finger-pointing.
         pass the buck
         the buck stops here
10. (African-American Vernacular, dated, dance) Synonym of buck dance.
11. Synonym of mule (“type of cocktail with ginger ale etc.”)
12. (dated, slang) A kind of large marble in children's games.

verb

1. (intransitive) To copulate, as bucks and does.

Etymology 2

From Middle Low German bucken (“to bend”) or Middle Dutch bucken, bocken (“to bend”), intensive forms of Old Saxon būgan and Old Dutch *būgan (“to bend, bow”), both from Proto-West Germanic *beugan, from Proto-Germanic *būganą (“to bend”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰūgʰ- (“to bend”). Influenced in some senses by buck “male goat” (see above). Compare bow and elbow.

verb

1. (intransitive) To bend; buckle.
2. (intransitive, of a horse or similar saddle or pack animal) To leap upward arching its back, coming down with head low and forelegs stiff, forcefully kicking its hind legs upward, often in an attempt to dislodge or throw a rider or pack.
   1849, Jackey Jackey, The Statement of the Aboriginal Native Jackey Jackey, who Accompanied Mr. Kennedy, William Carron, Narrative of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Direction of the Late Mr. Assistant Surveyor E. B. Kennedy, 2004 Gutenberg Australia eBook #0201121, At the same time we got speared, the horses got speared too, and jumped and bucked all about, and got into the swamp.
3. (transitive, of a horse or similar saddle or pack animal) To throw (a rider or pack) by bucking.
   The brute that he was riding had nearly bucked him out of the saddle. 1886, W. E. Norris, A Bachelor's Blunder
4. (transitive, military) To subject to a mode of punishment which consists of tying the wrists together, passing the arms over the bent knees, and putting a stick across the arms and in the angle formed by the knees.
5. (intransitive, by extension) To resist obstinately; oppose or object strongly.
   The vice president bucked at the board's latest solution.
6. (intransitive, by extension) To move or operate in a sharp, jerking, or uneven manner.
   The motor bucked and sputtered before dying completely.
7. (transitive, by extension) To overcome or shed (e.g., an impediment or expectation), in pursuit of a goal; to force a way through despite (an obstacle); to resist or proceed against.
   The plane bucked a strong headwind.
   Our managers have to learn to buck the trend and do the right thing for their employees.
   John is really bucking the odds on that risky business venture. He's doing quite well.
   I spoke to him in London recently and suggested he was bucking an age-old system. Surely popular performers studied the possible reactions of their audience in advance when deciding on a new approach? 1977-11-20, Dave Gelly, “No more Ziggy as David Bowie becomes his own man”, in The Observer
   1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure [I] Asked if he wanted to go to a punk rock concert Saturday & he had another engagement but he would buck it because it sure sounded much more fun going with me.
8. (riveting) To press a reinforcing device (bucking bar) against (the force of a rivet) in order to absorb vibration and increase expansion.
9. (forestry) To saw a felled tree into shorter lengths, as for firewood.
10. (electronics) To output a voltage that is lower than the input voltage.
11. (chiefly Ireland, humorous or euphemistic) To fuck.
    Well he yoked the ass up to the cart. And then the holy ructions it did start. Well he bucked it in the air and he bucked it all around. Till he smashed the buckin' cart upon the ground. 1997-02-20, “Mickey's buckin' ass”performed by Richie Kavanagh
    Thatch had come down the stairs and chimed in: "Isn't he an awful buckin' eejit?" 2003, Sam Stewart, The Druid, page 195
    "Was he a buccaneer?" I asked. "No, eejit!" Lionel said. Never one to pass up a play on words, he continued, "He's a buckin' IRA man and he's gathering up an army in the Irish Free State. He says he's going to march up to Ulster and drive all of us Protestants into the Irish Sea!" 2010, The Other Belfast, page 155
    "I can see the headlines in the morning, taxi man bucking hangs himself. 2012-01-28, 20:01 from the start, in Mrs Brown's Boys (Mammy's Going) (2), episode 5, spoken by Agnes Brown (Brendan O'Carroll)
    I will buck a French lad, Erin. I will buck a French lad, so help me God. 2018-01-11, 13:39 from the start, in Derry Girls (1), episode 2, spoken by Michelle Mallon (Jamie-Lee O'Donnell)
    Protestors chanted "You're not wanted here" and held up placards with slogans such as "Buck off" - a pun on Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck's name - and "No to racist Ricketts". 2022-04-02, Emma Smith, “Watch: 'Buck off!' - Chelsea fans stage 'No to racist Ricketts' ownership protest outside Stamford Bridge”, in goal.com

Etymology 3

See beech.

noun

1. (Scotland) The beech tree.
   There is in it also woodes of buck, and deir in them. 1777, Mostyn John Armstrong, A Scotch Atlas; Or Description of the Kingdom of Scotland
   But, whilst we thus condemn the timber, we must not omit to praise the mast, which fats our swine and deer, and hath, in some families, even supported men with bread. Chios endured a memorable siege by the beniefit of this mast. And, in some parts of France, they now grind the buck in mills; it affords a sweet oil, which the poor people east most willingly. 1786, John Evelyn, Alexander Hunter, Silva: Or, A Discourse Of Forest-Trees, page 136
   The HORNBEAM ( provincially “HORSE-BEECH," in contradistinction to “buck beech” — the true beech) is, in many woods, the most prevalent species; and being drawn up in thickets with a rapid growth, becomes tall and straight enough for hop poles: and is even suffered to grow up, as a species of wood timber. 1798, William Marshall, The Rural Economy of the Southern Counties
   The magnolia, buck [ beech?], and poplar never grow on lands subject to overflow. 1969, Samuel Henry Lockett, Lauren C. Post, Louisiana as it is, page 53
   The underbrush is all there, spice brush, buck beech, iron wood and alder and no doubt in the spring of the year, there is a wealth of flowers. 2010, Joel Greenberg, Of Prairie, Woods, and Water

Etymology 4

From Middle English bouken (“steep in lye”), ultimately related to the root of beech. Cognate with Middle High German büchen, Swedish byka, Danish byge and Low German būken.

noun

1. Lye or suds in which cloth is soaked in the operation of bleaching, or in which clothes are washed.
   1673, Robert Almond, The English Horseman and Complete Farrier, London: Simon Miller, Chapter 25 “Maunginess in the Main,” p. 236, […] when you find the scurf to fall off, wash the Neck and other parts with Buck Lye made blood warm.
2. The cloth or clothes soaked or washed.

verb

1. To soak, steep or boil in lye or suds, as part of the bleaching process.
2. To wash (clothes) in lye or suds, or, in later usage, by beating them on stones in running water.
3. (mining) To break up or pulverize, as ores.
   This [ore mixture] was bucked or cobbed down to a 'peasy' size (i.e. the size of a pea) or less, using a flat-bottomed bucking hammer, and then riddled into coarse peasy and finer (sand-sized) 'smitham' grades. 1991, Joan Day, R. F. Tylecote, The industrial revolution in metals, page 89

Etymology 5

From Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk, body, hull of a ship, fishtrap, container”), from Old English būc (“belly, container”), from Proto-West Germanic *būk, from Proto-Germanic *būkaz. Doublet of bucket.

noun

1. (UK, dialectal) The body of a cart or waggon, especially the front part.
2. (UK, dialectal, anatomy) Belly, breast, chest.
3. (UK, dialectal) Size.

verb

1. (UK, dialectal, intransitive) To swell out.