buck

Buck, a male deer or goat, is inherited from Old English; buck, the marker passed round in poker, is probably short for a buckhorn knife.^[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

• IPA: /bʌk/^[4]

buck¹ male animal

Etymology

It is inherited from Old English bucca (“male goat”) (before 830, in the Vespasian Psalter),^[1][2] from *bukkōn,^[1][2] cognate with Old Saxon buck, Dutch bok, German Bock and Old Norse bukkr.^[1][2][5] It is perhaps from an Indo-European word also seen in Avestan būza- and Armenian buc “lamb”,^[2][5] though some think it comes from a lost pre-Germanic language,^[2] and Merriam-Webster notes the similar Celtic words (Old Irish boc), perhaps by borrowing.^[3] Barnhart regards the often-cited Old English buc “male deer” as a ghost word.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A male goat, before 830; the sense moved to the male deer by about 1300.^[1][2]

Semantic evolution

Buck was applied to a man from 1303,^[6] and to a fashionable, dashing young man from 1725;^[2][5] it was also used, disparagingly, of a Native American man from about 1800 and of a Black man from 1835.^[2] Buck private (1870s) may come from this sense.^[2] The verb, of a horse leaping with an arched back, is from 1848, first in an Australian book, apparently “to jump like a buck”;^[1][2] its figurative sense, to resist stubbornly, is from 1857, perhaps influenced by an earlier buck “to butt” (1750).^[1][2] Buck up, to cheer up, is from 1844.^[1][2] The slang sense “dollar” (1856, American) is probably from buckskin used as a unit of trade with Native Americans and frontiersmen (1748).^[1][2]

Timeline

• before 830 – a male goat.^[1]
• c. 1300 – a male deer.^[1][2]
• 1725 – a dashing young man.^[2]
• 1844 – buck up.^[1][2]
• 1848 – to buck (of a horse).^[1][2]
• 1856 – a dollar.^[1][2]
• 1857 – to resist.^[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The adult male of some animals, such as the deer, antelope, goat or rabbit.
2. (archaic) A spirited young man; a fop.
3. (informal) A dollar; an amount of money.

Verb

1. Of a horse, to leap upward with the back arched, often to throw its rider.
2. To resist or oppose stubbornly.

Word family

• buckskin
• buckshot

buck² poker marker

Etymology

It is probably short for an earlier buckhorn knife, a knife with a handle of buck's horn used as a counter in poker.^[3][1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In poker, an object put in the jackpot to show whose turn it is to deal: pass the buck is recorded in this literal sense in 1865.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The figurative pass the buck, to shift responsibility to someone else, is first recorded in 1912, in American English,^[1][2][7] and the buck stops here (1952) is associated with President Harry Truman.^[2]

Timeline

• 1865 – the poker marker.^[2][3]
• 1912 – pass the buck (figurative).^[1][2]
• 1952 – the buck stops here.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A counter or marker formerly passed from one poker player to another to show whose turn it is to deal.
2. pass the buck: to shift responsibility or blame to someone else.

Related words

• goat
• sawbuck

Usage notes

A third buck, a sawhorse (1817, American English), was apparently borrowed from Dutch bok, trestle, and spelled after the animal word.^[1][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press