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Definition of Kick the bucket
1. Verb. Pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life. "The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102"
Specialized synonyms: Abort, Asphyxiate, Stifle, Suffocate, Buy It, Pip Out, Drown, Predecease, Famish, Starve, Fall, Succumb, Yield
Generic synonyms: Change State, Turn
Related verbs: Break, Break Down, Conk Out, Die, Fail, Give Out, Give Way, Go, Go Bad, Die
Derivative terms: Decease, Decedent, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Death, Exit, Expiration, Going, Passing
Antonyms: Be Born
Also: Die Down, Die Down, Die Off, Die Out
Definition of Kick the bucket
1. Verb. (idiomatic euphemistic colloquial) To die. ¹
2. Verb. (idiomatic colloquial) Of a machine, to break down such that it cannot be repaired. ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Lexicographical Neighbors of Kick The Bucket
Literary usage of Kick the bucket
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Theatrical Management in the West and South for Thirty Years by Solomon Smith (1868)
"I took up the idea that, if I must kick the bucket, I might as well do it in the
middle of the night, when most of the family were asleep, so that in the ..."
2. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Giving the Derivation, Source, Or Origin of by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1898)
"Kick the Bucket (To). A bocket is a pulley, and in Norfol|( a beam. ... To kick
the bucket is to be hung on the balk or bucket by the heels. ..."
3. A glossary of French slang by Olivier Leroy (1922)
"Casser sa pipe, to die, kick the bucket, peg out. 6. Casser du sucre sur la tête
de quelqu'un, to criticize, run down some one, to speak maliciously of ..."
4. The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical, and Anecdotal by John Camden Hotten (1874)
"kick the bucket, to die.—Norfolk. According to Forby, a metaphor taken from the
descent of a ... See kick the bucket, of which phrase it is a corruption. ..."
5. Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: Revised and Corrected ...by Francis Grose by Francis Grose (1823)
"kick the bucket. To die. He kicked the bucket one day ; he died one day. To kick
the clouds before the hotel door; ie to be hanged. KID. ..."
6. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (1888)
"The latter suggests a curious coincidence with the vulgar English, " kick the
bucket." The ordinary explanation given in the English slang dictionaries ..."
7. Scottish Notes and Queries edited by John Bulloch (1889)
"Heely, heely, laddie, ye may na' get the kirk though the auld man kick the bucket."
The expression, of which this anecdote shows the tearing, ..."
8. Handy-book of Literary Curiosities by William Shepard Walsh (1892)
"kick the bucket, a slang phrase common on both sides of the Atlantic, ... "Did he
kick the bucket, doctor?" faintly inquired the patient Kickshaws, ..."
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