bucket
Americannoun
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buckets
plural
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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.
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anything resembling or suggesting this.
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Machinery.
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any of the scoops attached to or forming the endless chain in certain types of conveyors or elevators.
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the scoop or clamshell of a steam shovel, power shovel, or dredge.
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a vane or blade of a waterwheel, paddle wheel, water turbine, or the like.
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(in a dam) a concave surface at the foot of a spillway for deflecting the downward flow of water.
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a bucketful.
a bucket of sand.
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Basketball.
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Informal. field goal.
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the part of the keyhole extending from the foul line to the end line.
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Bowling. a leave of the two, four, five, and eight pins, or the three, five, six, and nine pins.
verb (used with object)
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buckets,
present (3rd person singular)
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bucketed,
past participle, past
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bucketing
present participle
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to lift, carry, or handle in a bucket (often followed by up orout ).
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Chiefly British. to ride (a horse) fast and without concern for tiring it.
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to handle (orders, transactions, etc.) in or as if in a bucket shop.
verb (used without object)
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buckets,
present (3rd person singular)
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bucketed,
past participle, past
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bucketing
present participle
idioms
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kick the bucket, to die.
His children were greedily waiting for him to kick the bucket.
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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.
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drop the bucket on, to implicate, incriminate, or expose.
noun
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an open-topped roughly cylindrical container; pail
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Also called: bucketful. the amount a bucket will hold
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any of various bucket-like parts of a machine, such as the scoop on a mechanical shovel
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a cupped blade or bucket-like compartment on the outer circumference of a water wheel, paddle wheel, etc
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computing a unit of storage on a direct-access device from which data can be retrieved
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a turbine rotor blade
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an ice cream container
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slang to die
verb
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(tr) to carry in or put into a bucket
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(of rain) to fall very heavily
it bucketed all day
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to travel or drive fast
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(tr) to ride (a horse) hard without consideration
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slang (tr) to criticize severely
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.
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bucketsimple
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bucketssimple
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have bucketedperfect
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has bucketedperfect
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am bucketingprogressive
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are bucketingprogressive
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is bucketingprogressive
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have been bucketingperfect progressive
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has been bucketingperfect progressive
Past
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bucketedsimple
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had bucketedperfect
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was bucketingprogressive
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were bucketingprogressive
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had been bucketingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
An open, round container with a handle is a bucket. You might take a bucket and shovel to the beach for making sand castles. Buckets are usually made of metal or plastic, and are typically used to carry liquids. A dairy farmer might catch milk in a metal bucket, announcing at the end of the morning, "I got six buckets of milk!" The expression "to kick the bucket" means to die — this particular meaning might stem from the French buquet, "balance," a beam that was used for hanging slaughtered animals.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There’s also annual nondiscrimination testing that can limit how much high earners are allowed to put into that bucket, and in some plans the contributions get refunded after year-end.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
Back then, the largest vehicles were consigned to the “hard to electrify” bucket.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
The bucket was placed on the floor, after which a "splash" was heard.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2026
“Because we are still talking a bout a drop in the bucket in terms of Treasury debt out there,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 24, 2026
Madame Ionesco swung her legs until they kicked the bucket, so to speak.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
After getting back within nine, the Sparks were down 45-32 at halftime following three consecutive buckets from Golden State guard Tiffany Hayes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Donations to colleges fall into two buckets: those for general use and those restricted to a specific purpose by the benefactor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
The bullish argument this time is that Ford and GM aren’t spending buckets of money or stepping far out of their comfort zone.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
After a briefing in a nearby car park, we troop down to the water's edge clutching white plastic buckets to begin the hunt.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
After the air around the buckets cooled and sank, it would lower the temperature around the president's bed.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
“I think we need a more personalized approach for each individual in determining when they should actually start screening—not this bucketed start age,” Bea says.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 2, 2023
He said the Fed would revisit how firms were bucketed by size when it came to supervision and regulation.
From New York Times ● Mar. 28, 2023
"The rain was horrendous. It literally bucketed down," said parish council vice-chairman Mike Palmer.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2021
Any captured water is bucketed to toilets for flushing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2018
In the silver chill of the Maine afternoon, as I bucketed and lumbered over the pitted surface of a wood road, I saw four lady mooses moving with stately heaviness across my bow.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
Choosing value-based strategies, dividend stocks and bucketing approaches can help you navigate several market scenarios, Saglimbene said.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2022
I’m going to be listing out all relevant fantasy football players each week and bucketing them into tiers.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2022
“The water was still thigh-high at 7 a.m. and those who parked their cars in the streets were in panic because their vehicles were submerged … Other residents were bucketing out water from their homes.”
From Washington Times ● Sep. 5, 2022
Even for players who seem well documented, bucketing their records along with the rest of the major leagues struggles to capture the objective history people seek in statistics.
From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2020
Others hunted for hidden petrol and ship oil pockets, bucketing out the valuable fluid.
From "Ship Breaker" by Paolo Bacigalupi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
