Kick the bucket

Last updated

To kick the bucket is an English idiom considered a euphemistic, informal, or slang term meaning "to die". [1] Its origin remains unclear, though there have been several theories.

Contents

Origin theories

A common theory is that the idiom refers to hanging, either as a method of execution or suicide. However, the actual origin of the idiom is a matter of dispute. Its earliest appearance is in the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), where it is defined as "to die". [2] In John Badcock's slang dictionary of 1823, the explanation is given that "One Bolsover having hung himself from a beam while standing on a pail, or bucket, kicked this vessel away in order to pry into futurity and it was all UP with him from that moment: Finis". [3]

The theory favoured by the OED relates to the alternative definition of a bucket as a beam or yoke that can be used to hang or carry things on. [2] [4] The "bucket" may refer to the beam on which slaughtered pigs are suspended. The animals may struggle on the bucket, hence the expression. [2] The word "bucket" still can be used today to refer to such a beam in the Norfolk dialect. [5] It is thought that this definition came from the French word trébuchet or buque, meaning "balance". [2] [4] William Shakespeare used the word in this sense in his play Henry IV Part II where Falstaff says: [2]

Swifter than he that gibbets on the Brewers Bucket.

— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II

It has also been speculated that the phrase might originate from the Catholic custom of holy-water buckets: [6]

After death, when a body had been laid out ... the holy-water bucket was brought from the church and put at the feet of the corpse. When friends came to pray... they would sprinkle the body with holy water ... it is easy to see how such a saying as "kicking the bucket" came about. Many other explanations of this saying have been given by persons who are unacquainted with Catholic custom

— The Right Reverend Abbot Horne, Relics of Popery

Alternatively, in the moment of death a person stretches their legs (Spanish: Estirar la pata means "to die") and so might kick the bucket placed there.

Yet another theory seeks to extend the saying beyond its earliest use in the 16th century with reference to the Latin proverb Capra Scyria, the goat that is said to kick over the pail after being milked (920 in Erasmus' Adagia). Thus a promising beginning is followed by a bad ending or, as Andrea Alciato phrased it in the Latin poem accompanying the drawing in his Emblemata (1524), "Because you have spoilt your fine beginnings with a shameful end and turned your service into harm, you have done what the she-goat does when she kicks the bucket that holds her milk and with her hoof squanders her own riches." [7] Here it is the death of one's reputation that is in question.

American variations

At one time the American and Caribbean expression "kickeraboo" used to be explained as a deformed version of "kick the bucket". [8] The expression occurs as the title of a mid-19th-century American minstrel ballad with the ending "Massa Death bring one bag and we Kickeraboo". [9] However, it is now thought that it may have derived from a native word in one of the West African creoles. The expression "kek(e)rebu" is first recorded in 1721 with the meaning "to die" in the Krio language of Sierra Leone. [10] Earlier still "Kickativoo" is recorded in Ghana (then known as the Gold or Slave Coast). In 1680 it referred to the capsizing of a canoe but also had the meaning "to die". [11]

Whatever African American usage might have been in the 19th century, by the 20th century they were using the idiom "kick the bucket". It occurs in the jazz classic Old Man Mose, recorded by Louis Armstrong in the United States in 1935, and in the West Indies it figured in the title of the reggae hit “Long Shot kick de bucket”, recorded by The Pioneers in 1969. In the case of the latter, the song refers to the death of a horse.

In North America, a variation of the idiom is "kick off". [12] A related phrase is to "hand in one's dinner pail", a bucket that contains a worker's dinner. [5] Another variation, "bucket list", a wish list of things to do before one dies, is derived from "to kick the bucket". [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhyming slang</span> Any system of slang in which a word is replaced with a phrase that rhymes with it.

Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang. In the US, especially the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang.

A slang is a vocabulary of an informal register, common in verbal conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception.

A noun is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.

An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms, however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five million idiomatic expressions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idiom dictionary</span> Dictionary or phrase book that lists and explains idioms

An idiom dictionary is a dictionary or phrase book that lists and explains idioms – distinctive words or phrases having a figurative meaning that goes beyond the original semantics of the words.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bucket</span> Open top watertight container

A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone or square, with an open top and a flat bottom, attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the bail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saying</span> Concisely expression memorable for its meaning

A saying is any concise expression that is especially memorable because of its meaning or style. Sayings are categorized as follows:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holy cow (expression)</span> Exclamation of surprise

"Holy cow!", an exclamation of surprise used mostly in the United States, Canada, Australia, and England, is a minced oath or euphemism. The expression dates to at latest 1905. Its earliest known appearance was in a tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Journal: "A lover of the cow writes to this column to protest against a certain variety of Hindu oath having to do with the vain use of the name of the milk producer. There is the profane exclamations, 'holy cow!' and, 'By the stomach of the eternal cow!'" The phrase appears to have been adopted as a means to avoid using obscene or indecent language and may have been based on a general awareness of the holiness of cows in some religious traditions, particularly Hinduism.

A phraseme, also called a set phrase, fixed expression, multiword expression, , is a multi-word or multi-morphemic utterance whose components include at least one that is selectionally constrained or restricted by linguistic convention such that it is not freely chosen. In the most extreme cases, there are expressions such as X kicks the bucket ≈ ‘person X dies of natural causes, the speaker being flippant about X’s demise’ where the unit is selected as a whole to express a meaning that bears little or no relation to the meanings of its parts. All of the words in this expression are chosen restrictedly, as part of a chunk. At the other extreme, there are collocations such as stark naked, hearty laugh, or infinite patience where one of the words is chosen freely based on the meaning the speaker wishes to express while the choice of the other (intensifying) word is constrained by the conventions of the English language. Both kinds of expression are phrasemes, and can be contrasted with ’’free phrases’’, expressions where all of the members are chosen freely, based exclusively on their meaning and the message that the speaker wishes to communicate.

The phrase "apple of my eye" refers in English to something or someone that one cherishes above all others. Originally, the phrase was simply an idiom referring to the pupil of the eye.

Merriam-Webster's Befudiom is a word game where teams are challenged to guess selected idioms by acting, shouting, drawing, or spelling them out.

The following is a list of words and formulations commonly used as profanity throughout Romania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English-language idioms</span> Common words or phrases with non-literal meanings

An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words. By another definition, an idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements. For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket. Furthermore, they would understand when each meaning is being used in context.

<i>No worries</i> English phrase used especially in Australia

No worries is an expression seen in English meaning "do not worry about that", "that's all right", "forget about it" or "sure thing". It is similar to the American English "no problem". The phrase is widely used in Australian speech and represents a feeling of friendliness, good humour, optimism and "mateship" in Australian culture. The phrase has been referred to as the national motto of Australia.

Güey is a word in colloquial Mexican Spanish which is commonly used to refer to any person without using their name. Though more often, and originally only applied to males, it can be used equally for males and females; although women would more commonly use another slang word to refer to another unnamed female person, such as "chava" or "vieja". It is used roughly the same way as "dude" is used in modern American English. It is derived from the term buey, which refers to an ox, used for meat, sacrifice, or labor. It was used to insult men as cuckolds, because oxen are slow, castrated bulls. Over time, the initial underwent a consonant mutation to a, often elided; resulting in the modern wey. The word can be used as an insult, like "fool", although, due to its extremely high frequency of use in a multitude of contexts, it has lost much of its offensive character, becoming a colloquialism.

Comprehension of idioms is the act of processing and understanding idioms. Idioms are a common type of figure of speech. Based on common linguistic definitions, an idiom is a combination of words that contains a meaning that cannot be understood based on the literal definition of the individual words. An example of an idiom is hit the sack, which means to go to bed. It can be used in a sentence like the following: I'm beat; I'm gonna hit the sack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">To rob Peter to pay Paul</span> English idiom

"To rob Peter to pay Paul", or other versions that have developed over the centuries such as "to borrow from Peter to pay Paul", and "to unclothe Peter to clothe Paul", are phrases meaning to take from one person or thing to give to another, especially when it results in the elimination of one debt by incurring another. There are many other variants and similar phrases in numerous languages. "Maneuvering the Apostles", which has the same meaning, was derived from this expression. In patchwork, "Rob Peter to pay Paul" is an alternative name for the Drunkard's Path patchwork block.

References

  1. ↑ Oxford Advanced Dictionary of Current English, 4th Ed. (1989).
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 The Phrase Finder.
  3. ↑ Slang: a dictionary of the turf, the ring, the chase, the pit, of bon-ton, and the varieties of life, London 1823, p. 18.
  4. 1 2 "Bucket". The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
  5. 1 2 Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, p. 159.
  6. ↑ "Relics of Popery", Catholic Truth Society London.
  7. ↑ Emblem 160.
  8. ↑ John Camden Hotton, The Slang Dictionary, London 1865, pp. 164–165.
  9. ↑ Lubrano broadside ballad collection, 68.
  10. ↑ On the Anglophone Creole item kekrebu, American English 30/3, 1985, pp. 281–283.
  11. ↑ Magnus Huber, Ghanaian Pidgin English in Its West African Context, John Benjamins Publishing Co. 1999, p. 24.
  12. ↑ Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, p. 787.
  13. ↑ "Definition of bucket list". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 21 March 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.