bucket

American  

[buhk-it] / ˈbʌk ɪt /

noun

1. a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit, etc.; pail.

2. anything resembling or suggesting this.

3. Machinery.

   1. any of the scoops attached to or forming the endless chain in certain types of conveyors or elevators.

   2. the scoop or clamshell of a steam shovel, power shovel, or dredge.

   3. a vane or blade of a waterwheel, paddle wheel, water turbine, or the like.

4. (in a dam) a concave surface at the foot of a spillway for deflecting the downward flow of water.

5. a bucketful.

   a bucket of sand.

6. Basketball.

   1. Informal.  field goal.

   2. the part of the keyhole extending from the foul line to the end line.

7. bucket seat.

8. Bowling.  a leave of the two, four, five, and eight pins, or the three, five, six, and nine pins.

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verb (used with object)

bucketed, bucketing

1. to lift, carry, or handle in a bucket (often followed by up orout ).

2. Chiefly British.  to ride (a horse) fast and without concern for tiring it.

3. to handle (orders, transactions, etc.) in or as if in a bucket shop.

verb (used without object)

bucketed, bucketing

1. Informal.  to move or drive fast; hurry.

idioms

1. kick the bucket,  to die.

   His children were greedily waiting for him to kick the bucket.

2. drop in the bucket,  a small, usually inadequate amount in relation to what is needed or requested.

   The grant for research was just a drop in the bucket.

3. drop the bucket on,  to implicate, incriminate, or expose.

bucket British  

/ ˈbʌkɪt /

noun

1. an open-topped roughly cylindrical container; pail

2. Also called: bucketful.  the amount a bucket will hold

3. any of various bucket-like parts of a machine, such as the scoop on a mechanical shovel

4. a cupped blade or bucket-like compartment on the outer circumference of a water wheel, paddle wheel, etc

5. computing a unit of storage on a direct-access device from which data can be retrieved

6. a turbine rotor blade

7. an ice cream container

8. slang  to die

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verb

1. (tr) to carry in or put into a bucket

2. (of rain) to fall very heavily

   it bucketed all day

3. to travel or drive fast

4. (tr) to ride (a horse) hard without consideration

5. slang  (tr) to criticize severely

bucket More Idioms  

1. see drop in the bucket; kick the bucket; rain cats and dogs (buckets); weep buckets.

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Regionalisms

Though both bucket and pail are used throughout the entire U.S., pail has its greatest use in the Northern U.S., and bucket is more commonly used elsewhere, especially in the Midland and Southern U.S.

Etymology

Origin of bucket

1250–1300; Middle English buket < Anglo-French < Old English bucc (variant of būc vessel, belly; cognate with German Bauch ) + Old French -et -et

Example Sentences

It was like a fire bucket brigade, with workers passing the melons down the line to be placed into large boxes on a flatbed, a process the owner called “pitching.”

From Los Angeles Times

Siegrist went digging in a bucket full of coins and junk for a key chain.

From The Wall Street Journal

But everything being done adds up to a drop in the bucket for a city with some 1,000 supermarkets in total.

From Barron's

The Titans were family, and to this day he remembers that Wilhite’s father attended practice just about every day, sitting in the front row, wearing that trademark white bucket hat.

From Los Angeles Times

Consider a person who retires with only tax-deferred accounts: They lose strategic flexibility compared with those who diversify across taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free buckets, which really allows us to optimize that lifetime tax rate.

From Barron's

Related Words

• can
• canister
• cask
• kettle
• pail
• pot