Bucket Definition
bŭkĭt
buckets
noun
buckets
A deep, round container with a flat bottom and a curved handle, used to hold or carry water, coal, etc.; pail.
Webster's New World
The amount held by a bucket.
Webster's New World
A unit of dry measure in the US Customary System equal to 2 pecks (17.6 liters).
American Heritage
A thing like a bucket, as a scoop on a power shovel, any of the cups on a water wheel, or any of the curved vanes in the rotor of a turbine.
Webster's New World
The rump; buttocks.
Webster's New World
verb
buckets
To carry, draw, or lift (water, etc.) in a bucket or buckets.
Webster's New World
To speculate (with) dishonestly as in a bucket shop.
Webster's New World
To ride (a horse) at a fast pace.
Webster's New World
To move or drive rapidly or recklessly.
Webster's New World
To make haste; hustle.
American Heritage
idiom
a drop in the bucket
- An insufficient or inconsequential amount in comparison with what is required.
American Heritage
kick the bucket
- to die
Webster's New World
Other Word Forms of Bucket
Noun
Singular:
bucketPlural:
bucketsIdioms, Phrasal Verbs Related to Bucket
- a drop in the bucket
- kick the bucket
Origin of Bucket
-
From Middle English boket, buket, partly from Anglo-Norman buket, buquet ‘tub, pail’ (compare Jersey boutchet, Guernsey bouquet), diminutive of buc ‘abdomen; object with a cavity’, from Vulgar Latin *būco (compare Occitan/Catalan buc, Italian buco, buca (“hole, gap”)), from Old Frankish *būk (“belly, stomach”), and partly from Old English bucc (“bucket, pitcher”) (mod. dialectal buck), both from Proto-Germanic *būkaz (“belly, stomach”), equivalent to bouk + -et. More at bouk.
From Wiktionary
Middle English from Old French buket of Germanic origin
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
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