Noun

buck (plural bucks)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English nouns#BUCKCategory:English countable nouns#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad and kangaroo.
2. (USCategory:American English#BUCK) An uncastrated sheep, a ram.
3. (AfricaCategory:African English#BUCK) An antelope of either sex; compare with Afrikaans bok.
   • 1950 April, Timothy H. Cobb, “The Kenya-Uganda Railway”, in Railway Magazine, pages 265-266:

     There are all kinds of game in the valley, and you are unlucky if you do not see a giraffe or an ostrich, or at least a herd of buck.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

4. The sound made by a chicken.
5. A young buck; an adventurous, impetuous, dashing, or high-spirited young man.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 60, in Vanity Fair:

     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 […]

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

6. (BritishCategory:British English#BUCK, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#BUCK) A fop or dandy.

   Synonyms: macaroni, popinjay; see also Thesaurus:dandy

   • 1808, Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Connoisseur: The British Essayists, volume 32, page 93:

     This pusillanimous creature thinks himself, and would be thought, a buck.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1825, Constantine Henry Phipps, I Zingari: The English in Italy, volume II, page 153:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

7. (USCategory:American English#BUCK, datedCategory:English dated terms#BUCK, derogatoryCategory:English derogatory terms#BUCK) A black or Native American man.
   • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 83:

     As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1956, Frank S. Nugent, Alan Le May, The Searchers, spoken by Futterman:

     But this buck claimed he was a big war chief with the Nawyecky Comanches.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1979, Octavia Butler, Kindred:

     She got so she’d rather have a buck nigger than me!

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 2009, Carol C. Morgan, Wind in the Cotton Fields, page 460:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

8. (AustraliaCategory:Australian English#BUCK, derogatoryCategory:English derogatory terms#BUCK, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#BUCK) An Aboriginal man.
   • 1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 44:

     ‘A couple of Old Men wanted that young lubra and they’ve spurred on the bucks to chase Possum and cut his liver out.’

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

9. (USCategory:American English#BUCK, military slangCategory:English military slang#BUCK, WWI–WWII) Lowest rank; a private.^[1]
10. A unit of a particular currency
    1. (USCategory:American English#BUCK, AustraliaCategory:Australian English#BUCK, New ZealandCategory:New Zealand English#BUCK, CanadaCategory:Canadian English#BUCK, informalCategory:English informal terms#BUCK) A dollar (one hundred cents).

       Synonyms: bill, bone, (US, slang) buckaroo, clam, cucumber, dead president, greenback, note, one-spot, paper, simoleon, single, smackeroo

       Can I borrow five bucks?Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

       • 1873, John Morris, Wanderings of a Vagabond:

         Won't yer give Jake ten bucks ter buy hisself some close, so he look nice 'mong de gemmens?

         Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    2. (South AfricaCategory:South African English#BUCK, informalCategory:English informal terms#BUCK) A rand (currency unit).
    3. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, slangCategory:English slang#BUCK, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#BUCK) A sixpence.

       three and a buck ― three shillings and sixpenceCategory:English terms with collocations#BUCK

    4. (informalCategory:English informal terms#BUCK, rareCategory:English terms with rare senses#BUCK) A euro.
       • 2010 December 14, Robert Hernandez, Slurp:Killer Wine‎, page 129:

         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.

         Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    5. (by extension, AustraliaCategory:Australian English#BUCK, South AfricaCategory:South African English#BUCK, USCategory:American English#BUCK, informalCategory:English informal terms#BUCK) Money.

       Corporations will do anything to make a buck.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

       • 1987, Oliver Stone, Wall Street (motion picture), spoken by Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas):

         It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

         Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    6. (financeCategory:en:Finance#BUCK) One million dollars.

       (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)Category:Requests for quotations in English#BUCK

12. (USCategory:American English#BUCK, slangCategory:English slang#BUCK) One hundred.

    Synonym: ton

    The police caught me driving a buck forty [140 miles per hour] on the freeway.

    Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

    That skinny guy? C’mon, he can’t weigh more than a buck and a quarter [125 pounds].

    Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

13. Clipping of buckshotCategory:English clippings#BUCK.

    He loaded the shotgun with two rounds of double-ought buck.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

14. 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. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, dialectCategory:English dialectal terms#BUCK) 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.
       • 2010, Andrew McCredie, Paula Reisner, Intermeccanica: The Story of the Prancing Bull, page 58:

         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.

         Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

         Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
    5. (datedCategory:English dated terms#BUCK) 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 USCategory:American English#BUCK, in certain metaphors or phrases) Blame; responsibility; scapegoating; finger-pointing.

          pass the buckCategory:English terms with collocations#BUCK

          the buck stops hereCategory:English terms with collocations#BUCK

15. (African-American VernacularCategory:African-American Vernacular English#BUCK, datedCategory:English dated terms#BUCK, danceCategory:en:Dance#BUCK) Synonym of buck dance.
16. Synonym of mule (“type of cocktail with ginger ale etc.”).
17. (datedCategory:English dated terms#BUCK, slangCategory:English slang#BUCK) A kind of large marble in children's games.
18. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, obsoleteCategory:English terms with obsolete senses#BUCK, slangCategory:English slang#BUCK) An unlicensed cabman.

Descendants

• → Unami: palëpay (semantic loan)

See also

• doe, doeling, ewe, gill, jill, nanny, nanny-goat, she-goat

Verb

buck (third-person singular simple present bucks, present participle bucking, simple past and past participle bucked)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English verbs#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK) To copulate, as bucks and does.

Verb

buck (third-person singular simple present bucks, present participle bucking, simple past and past participle bucked)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English verbs#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK) To bend; buckle.
2. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK, 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. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#BUCK, of a horse or similar saddle or pack animal) To throw (a rider or pack) by bucking.
   • 1886, W. E. Norris, A Bachelor's Blunder:

     The brute that he was riding had nearly bucked him out of the saddle.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

4. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK, by extension) To resist obstinately; oppose or object strongly.

   The vice president bucked at the board’s latest solution.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

5. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK, by extension) To move or operate in a sharp, jerking, or uneven manner.

   The motor bucked and sputtered before dying completely.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

6. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#BUCK, 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.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

   Our managers have to learn to buck the trend and do the right thing for their employees.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

   John is really bucking the odds on that risky business venture. He's doing quite well.Category:English terms with usage examples#BUCK

   • 1977 November 20, Dave Gelly, “No more Ziggy as David Bowie becomes his own man”, in The Observer‎:

     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?

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 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.

7. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#BUCK, militaryCategory:en:Military#BUCK) 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.
8. (USCategory:American English#BUCK, military slangCategory:English military slang#BUCK) To strive or aspire e.g. to a promotion.^[1]
9. (metalworkingCategory:en:Metalworking#BUCK, constructionCategory:en:Construction#BUCK) To press a heavy, shaped bucking bar against the bucktail of a rivet, while the opposite end (the rivet factory head) is hammered by a rivet gun, to upset the bucktail into an appropriate shape, most commonly a pancake-shape.^[2]
10. (forestryCategory:en:Forestry#BUCK) To saw a felled tree into shorter lengths, as for firewood.
11. (electronicsCategory:en:Electronics#BUCK) To output a voltage that is lower than the input voltage.^[3]
12. (chiefly IrelandCategory:Irish English#BUCK, humorousCategory:English humorous terms#BUCK or euphemisticCategory:English euphemisms#BUCK) To fuck.
    • 1997 February 20, “Mickey's buckin' ass”‎performed by Richie Kavanagh:

      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.

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2003, Sam Stewart, The Druid‎, page 195:

      Thatch had come down the stairs and chimed in: "Isn't he an awful buckin' eejit?"

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2010, The Other Belfast‎, page 155:

      "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!"

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2012 January 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 can see the headlines in the morning, taxi man bucking hangs himself.

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2018 January 11, 13:39 from the start, in Derry Girls (1), episode 2, spoken by Michelle Mallon (Jamie-Lee O'Donnell):

      I will buck a French lad, Erin. I will buck a French lad, so help me God.

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2022 April 2, Emma Smith, “Watch: 'Buck off!' - Chelsea fans stage 'No to racist Ricketts' ownership protest outside Stamford Bridge”, in goal.com‎:

      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".

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

13. (MLECategory:Multicultural London English#BUCK) To meet, to encounter, to come across.
    • 2020 July 20, “Straight Facts” (0:35 from the start), Broadday (lyrics)‎:

      If I buck a paigon, I will disappoint his mum

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

    • 2021 September 6, “T.R.A.P” (0:10 from the start), 88 (ZT) (lyrics)‎:

      I go mad when I buck me a opper, chest and back and I fucked up his posture

      Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

Noun

buck (plural bucks)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English nouns#BUCKCategory:English countable nouns#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (ScotlandCategory:Scottish English#BUCK) The beech tree.
   • 1777, Mostyn John Armstrong, A Scotch Atlas; Or Description of the Kingdom of Scotland:

     There is in it also woodes of buck, and deir in them.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1786, John Evelyn, Alexander Hunter, Silva: Or, A Discourse Of Forest-Trees, page 136:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1798, William Marshall, The Rural Economy of the Southern Counties:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 1969, Samuel Henry Lockett, Lauren C. Post, Louisiana as it is, page 53:

     The magnolia, buck [ beech?], and poplar never grow on lands subject to overflow.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

   • 2010, Joel Greenberg, Of Prairie, Woods, and Water:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

Noun

buckCategory:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English nouns#BUCKCategory:English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK (archaicCategory:English archaic terms#BUCK)

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.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:

     Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

Verb

buck (third-person singular simple present bucks, present participle bucking, simple past and past participle bucked)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English verbs#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK (archaicCategory:English archaic terms#BUCK)

2. To soak, steep or boil in lye or suds, as part of the bleaching process.^[5]
3. To wash (clothes) in lye or suds, or, in later usage, by beating them on stones in running water^[5]
4. (miningCategory:en:Mining#BUCK) To break up or pulverize, as ores.^[5]
   • 1991, Joan Day, R. F. Tylecote, The industrial revolution in metals, page 89:

     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.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned

Alternative forms

• bouk

Noun

buck (plural bucks)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English nouns#BUCKCategory:English countable nouns#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, dialectalCategory:English dialectal terms#BUCK) The body of a cart or waggon, especially the front part.
2. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, dialectalCategory:English dialectal terms#BUCK, anatomyCategory:en:Anatomy#BUCK) Belly, breast, chest.
3. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, dialectalCategory:English dialectal terms#BUCK) Size.

Verb

buck (third-person singular simple present bucks, present participle bucking, simple past and past participle bucked)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English verbs#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (UKCategory:British English#BUCK, dialectalCategory:English dialectal terms#BUCK, intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK) To swell out.

Verb

buck (third-person singular simple present bucks, present participle bucking, simple past and past participle bucked)Category:English lemmas#BUCKCategory:English verbs#BUCKCategory:English entries with incorrect language header#BUCKCategory:Pages with entries#BUCKCategory:Pages with 2 entries#BUCK

1. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#BUCK, archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#BUCK, slangCategory:English slang#BUCK) To boast or brag.
   • 1880, Ali Baba (page 164)

     And then […] he bucks with a quiet stubborn determination that would fill an American editor, or an Under Secretary of State with despair. He belongs to the 12-foot-tiger school, so perhaps he can't help it.

   • 1905, E. W. Hornung, A Thief in the Night:

     He was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours. What happens? You are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night.

     Category:English terms with quotations#BUCK

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned

See also

• buck hoist (different etymology)