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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

buck.

A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad, skunk and kangaroo.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad, skunk and kangaroo.

  2. An uncastrated sheep, a ram.

    US
  3. An antelope of either sex; compare with Afrikaans bok.

    Africa
  4. The sound made by a chicken.

  5. A young buck; an adventurous, impetuous, dashing, or high-spirited young man.

  6. A fop or dandy.

    UK · obsolete
  7. A black or Native American man.

    US · dated · derogatory
  8. An Aboriginal man.

    Australia · derogatory · obsolete
  9. Lowest rank; a private.

    US · slang
  10. A unit of a particular currency A dollar (one hundred cents).

    Australia · Canada · New-Zealand · US · informal
    Can I borrow five bucks?
  11. A unit of a particular currency A rand (currency unit).

    South-Africa · informal
  12. A unit of a particular currency A sixpence.

    UK · obsolete · slang
    three and a buck
  13. A unit of a particular currency A euro.

    informal · rare
  14. A unit of a particular currency Money.

    Australia · South-Africa · US · broadly · informal
    Corporations will do anything to make a buck.
  15. A unit of a particular currency One million dollars.

  16. One hundred.

    US · slang
    The police caught me driving a buck forty [140 miles per hour] on the freeway.
    That skinny guy? C’mon, he can’t weigh more than a buck and a quarter [125 pounds].
  17. Clipping of buckshot.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping
    He loaded the shotgun with two rounds of double-ought buck.
  18. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. The body of a post mill, particularly in East Anglia. See Wikipedia:Windmill machinery.

    UK · dialectal
  19. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. A frame on which firewood is sawed; a sawhorse; a sawbuck.

  20. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. A leather-covered frame used for gymnastic vaulting.

  21. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. A wood or metal frame used by automotive customizers and restorers to assist in the shaping of sheet metal bodywork.

  22. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. An object of various types, placed on a table to indicate turn or status; such as a brass object, placed in rotation on a US Navy wardroom dining table to indicate which officer is to be served first, or an item passed around a poker table indicating the dealer or placed in the pot to remind the winner of some privilege or obligation when his or her turn to deal next comes.

    dated
  23. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness. An object of various types, placed on a table to indicate turn or status; such as a brass object, placed in rotation on a US Navy wardroom dining table to indicate which officer is to be served first, or an item passed around a poker table indicating the dealer or placed in the pot to remind the winner of some privilege or obligation when his or her turn to deal next comes. Blame; responsibility; scapegoating; finger-pointing.

    broadly · dated
    pass the buck
    the buck stops here
  24. Synonym of buck dance.

    dated
  25. Synonym of mule (“type of cocktail with ginger ale etc.”).

  26. A kind of large marble in children's games.

    dated · slang
  27. An unlicensed cabman.

    UK · obsolete · slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰuǵ- Proto-Germanic *bukkaz Proto-Germanic *bukkô Proto-West Germanic *bukkō Old English bucca Middle English bukke English buck Inherited from Middle English bukke. Doublet of puck (“billy goat”). Currency-related senses hail from American English, a clipping of buckskin as a unit of trade among Native Americans and Europeans in frontier days (attested from 1748). The idea of rigidly standing implements is instilled by Dutch bok (“sawhorse”) as in zaagbok (“sawbuck”). The sense of an object indicating someone’s turn then occurred in American English, possibly originating from the game poker, where a knife (typically with a hilt made from a stag horn) was used as a place-marker to signify whose turn it was to deal. The place-marker was commonly referred to as a buck, which reinforced the term “pass the buck” used in poker, and eventually a silver dollar was used in place of a knife, which also led to a dollar being referred to as a buck.

verb/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To copulate, as bucks and does.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰuǵ- Proto-Germanic *bukkaz Proto-Germanic *bukkô Proto-West Germanic *bukkō Old English bucca Middle English bukke English buck Inherited from Middle English bukke. Doublet of puck (“billy goat”). Currency-related senses hail from American English, a clipping of buckskin as a unit of trade among Native Americans and Europeans in frontier days (attested from 1748). The idea of rigidly standing implements is instilled by Dutch bok (“sawhorse”) as in zaagbok (“sawbuck”). The sense of an object indicating someone’s turn then occurred in American English, possibly originating from the game poker, where a knife (typically with a hilt made from a stag horn) was used as a place-marker to signify whose turn it was to deal. The place-marker was commonly referred to as a buck, which reinforced the term “pass the buck” used in poker, and eventually a silver dollar was used in place of a knife, which also led to a dollar being referred to as a buck.

verb/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To bend; buckle.

    intransitive
  2. To leap upward arching its back, coming down with head low and forelegs stiff, forcefully kicking its hind legs upward, often in an attempt to dislodge or throw a rider or pack.

    intransitive
  3. To throw (a rider or pack) by bucking.

    transitive
  4. To resist obstinately; oppose or object strongly.

    broadly · intransitive
    The vice president bucked at the board’s latest solution.
  5. To move or operate in a sharp, jerking, or uneven manner.

    broadly · intransitive
    The motor bucked and sputtered before dying completely.
  6. To overcome or shed (e.g., an impediment or expectation), in pursuit of a goal; to force a way through despite (an obstacle); to resist or proceed against.

    broadly · transitive
    The plane bucked a strong headwind.
    Our managers have to learn to buck the trend and do the right thing for their employees.
  7. To subject to a mode of punishment which consists of tying the wrists together, passing the arms over the bent knees, and putting a stick across the arms and in the angle formed by the knees.

    transitive
  8. To strive or aspire e.g. to a promotion.

    US · slang
  9. To press a heavy, shaped bucking bar against the bucktail of a rivet, while the opposite end (the rivet factory head) is hammered by a rivet gun, to upset the bucktail into an appropriate shape, most commonly a pancake-shape.

  10. To saw a felled tree into shorter lengths, as for firewood.

  11. To output a voltage that is lower than the input voltage.

  12. To fuck.

    Ireland · euphemistic · humorous
  13. To meet, to encounter, to come across.

    Multicultural-London-English
Where this word comes from

From dialectal buck ("to give in, yield"; also bug (“to bend”)), from Middle Low German bucken (“to bend”) or Middle Dutch bucken, bocken (“to bend”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *bukkōn (“to bend, bend repeatedly”), from Proto-Germanic *bukkōną (“to bend”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰugʰ-, *bʰewgʰ- (“to bend”) + Proto-Germanic *-(u)kōną. Cognate with Old Frisian bukkia (“to bend”). Influenced in some senses by buck “male goat” (see above). Sense “to meet, to encounter” is a semantic loan from Jamaican Creole buck. Compare bow and elbow.

noun/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. The beech tree.

    Scotland
Where this word comes from

See beech.

noun/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Lye or suds in which cloth is soaked in the operation of bleaching, or in which clothes are washed.

    archaic
  2. The cloth or clothes soaked or washed.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bouken (“steep in lye”), ultimately related to the root of beech. Cognate with Middle High German büchen, Swedish byka, Danish byge and Low German būken.

verb/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To soak, steep or boil in lye or suds, as part of the bleaching process.

    archaic
  2. To wash (clothes) in lye or suds, or, in later usage, by beating them on stones in running water

    archaic
  3. To break up or pulverize, as ores.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bouken (“steep in lye”), ultimately related to the root of beech. Cognate with Middle High German büchen, Swedish byka, Danish byge and Low German būken.

noun/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. The body of a cart or waggon, especially the front part.

    UK · archaic · dialectal
  2. Belly, breast, chest.

    UK · archaic · dialectal
  3. Size.

    UK · archaic · dialectal
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk, body, hull of a ship, fishtrap, container”), from Old English būc (“belly, bottle, jug, pitcher”), from Proto-West Germanic *būk, from Proto-Germanic *būkaz. Doublet of bucket.

verb/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To swell out.

    UK · archaic · dialectal · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English bouk (“belly, trunk, body, hull of a ship, fishtrap, container”), from Old English būc (“belly, bottle, jug, pitcher”), from Proto-West Germanic *būk, from Proto-Germanic *būkaz. Doublet of bucket.

verb/ˈbʌk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈbʊk/Ireland, Northern-England/ˈbɜk//ˈbäk/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To boast or brag.

    archaic · intransitive · slang
Where this word comes from

From Hindi बकना (baknā, “babble, talk nonsense”).

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Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.