bucket
/ˈbʌkɪt/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms buckets bucketing bucketed the Bucket
- noun A container made of rigid material, often with a handle, used to carry liquids or small items. “I need a bucket to carry the water from the well.”
- noun The amount held in this container. “The horse drank a whole bucket of water.”
- noun (informal, chiefly in the plural) A large amount of liquid. “It rained buckets yesterday.”
- noun (informal, chiefly in the plural) A great deal of anything. “My new suit cost me buckets.”
- noun (UK, archaic) A unit of measure equal to four gallons.
- noun The part of a piece of machinery that resembles a bucket (container).
- noun (MTE, slang, derogatory) Someone who habitually uses crack cocaine.
- noun (slang) An old vehicle that is not in good working order.
- verb (transitive) To place inside a bucket.
- verb (transitive) To draw or lift in, or as if in, buckets. “to bucket water”
- verb (intransitive, informal) To rain heavily. “It’s really bucketing down out there.”
- verb (intransitive, informal) To travel very quickly. “The boat is bucketing along.”
- verb (transitive) To ride (a horse) hard or mercilessly.
- verb (transitive, Australia, slang) To criticize vehemently; to denigrate.
- verb (computing, transitive) To categorize (data) by splitting it into buckets, or groups of related items.
- verb (US, finance, transitive) To engage in an illegal practice where a broker confirms a client's trade order without actually executing it on the free market.
- proper noun Nickname for Pawtucket: a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States.
Synonyms
pail scoop vane blade banger beater hooptie jalopy wreck crock shitbox rustbucket bucket of bolts bucket of rust clunker crate flivver gas guzzler junker lemon bucketful
Etymology
From Middle English buket, boket, partly from Old English bucc ("bucket, pitcher"; mod. dialectal buck), equivalent to bouk + -et; and partly from Anglo-Norman buket, buquet (“tub; pail”) (compare Norman boutchet, Norman bouquet), diminutive of Old French buc (“abdomen; object with a cavity”), from Vulgar Latin *būcus (compare Occitan and Catalan buc, Italian buco, buca (“hole, gap”)), from Frankish *būk (“belly, stomach”). Both the Old English and Frankish terms derive from Proto-Germanic *būkaz (“belly, stomach”). More at bouk.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A vessel for drawing up water from a well, or for catching, holding, or carrying water, sap, or other liquids.
- noun A vessel (as a tub or scoop) for hoisting and conveying coal, ore, grain, etc.
Etymology [OE. boket; cf. AS. buc pitcher, or Corn. buket tub.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bucket”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details