bucket brigade
Americannoun
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a line of persons formed to extinguish a fire by passing on buckets of water quickly from a distant source.
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any group of persons who cooperate to help cope with an emergency.
Etymology
Origin of bucket brigade
First recorded in 1910–15
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.
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 ● Nov. 30, 2025
These groups act like a molecular bucket brigade to grab positively charged potassium ions and quickly pass them to the next tethered sulfonate in line, helping the ions zip through the membrane virtually unimpeded.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 26, 2023
Kim stood in the middle of a bucket brigade passing cardboard boxes full of chips to another student volunteer.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2023
Neighbors formed a bucket brigade to move water from a nearby river.
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2022
Still, without planning or discussion, as more and more neighbors arrived, a bucket brigade had begun.
From "Stella by Starlight" by Sharon M. Draper
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.
