Kick the bucket
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
To die. The expression is informal and can sound flippant when used about a recent or painful death.
Origin
Kick the bucket is recorded with the meaning die in 1775 and was common enough to enter Francis Grose's slang dictionary in 1785. Its underlying image is uncertain. It may draw on older associations between kicking, hanging, and a bucket meaning a beam or balance, or on someone kicking away a pail while hanging themself, but the phrase predates a well-known 1788 report of such an event. Claims that it certainly came from slaughtered animals kicking a suspension beam are not established by the early evidence.
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Usage Examples
- The old printer finally kicked the bucket after thirty years of rattling in the corner.
- In the comedy, the miser hides his fortune so well that nobody finds it after he kicks the bucket.
- Grandad joked about kicking the bucket, but we used gentler words when his health declined.