bucket brigade

American  

noun

1. a line of persons formed to extinguish a fire by passing on buckets of water quickly from a distant source.

2. any group of persons who cooperate to help cope with an emergency.

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Etymology

Origin of bucket brigade

First recorded in 1910–15

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 • 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

Our house is on fire, and we desperately need a big, bold, public bucket brigade like the CCC.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 6, 2021

Cabinet members held a series of briefings to describe efforts to get freight trains, trucks and more ships into what amounted to a complex bucket brigade to bring fuel up the East Coast.

From New York Times • May 12, 2021

Near the carousel, a bucket brigade was hard at work.

From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate