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bucket shop

See more synonyms for bucket shop on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Stock Exchange. an unsound, unethical, or overly aggressive brokerage house.
  2. Slang. any shady commercial agency, as one dealing in illegally priced theater tickets.
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Origin of bucket shop

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75; originally a cheap drinking establishment, allegedly so called because liquor was mixed or sold in buckets
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for bucket shop

Historical Examples

  • I don't know the difference between this and the bucket-shop.

    A Spoil of Office

    Hamlin Garland

  • The bucket-shop business was not what he had imagined it to be.

    Young Wallingford

    George Randolph Chester

  • In New York a bogus commission agency established a system of gambling which beat the bucket-shop hollow.

  • The workers were all in like case, and for the most part drowned their troubles in stale beer from the bucket-shop below.

    Prisoners of Poverty

    Helen Campbell

  • He had just started up in the bucket-shop business and I was his first customer.

    Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford

    George Randolph Chester

British Dictionary definitions for bucket shop

bucket shop

noun
  1. an unregistered firm of stockbrokers that engages in speculation with clients' funds
  2. mainly British any small business that cannot be relied upon, esp one selling cheap airline tickets
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012