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:
"The knee joint, which is also the most common location for osteoarthritis, naturally acts like a leaky bucket," Liu says.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
Cloud-seeding technology may be a drop in the bucket, as it doesn't create rainstorms.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
“It’s really a drop in the bucket when we’re talking about statewide human-wildlife conflicts,” she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
And when the Federal Reserve was growing its balance sheet, adding reserves into the banking system, banks looking to hoover up deposits at times just needed to hold out a bucket.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
She too found a bucket to sit upon; luckily Simon turned it over quickly, before she fell in.
From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood
Funds could not be used for legal or defense purposes or to repay personal loans, nor could they be pulled from education, transportation or public safety buckets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
He explained the money was disbursed in buckets, and bureaucrats made the specific choices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
When you get to the end of each year, Chatzky said to look at the performance of each of the buckets and think about what you may need to move as the years go by.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026
The family initially boiled kettles to fill up buckets to wash and clean the dishes, but they've now invested in a camping shower.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
At the wharf, workers flashed their tin lunch buckets and grumbled for cigarettes.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
“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
It’s outside, waiting to be bucketed, lifted inside, and decorated with paper chains and berries.
From "Will’s Race for Home" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
For much of Saturday afternoon, the skies above Charlotte were a dirty shade of grey, the rain bucketing down, the wind blowing hard, thunder and lightning seen and heard every minute or so.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
Choosing value-based strategies, dividend stocks and bucketing approaches can help you navigate several market scenarios, Saglimbene said.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 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
They spent the next night and early morning bucketing out sewage and stormwater that had overflowed from the basement toilet and shower, rushed in through the sump pump and seeped in through the foundation.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 13, 2021
Well, at least it was better than bucketing rain, Victor thought as he pulled his hat down over his face.
From "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
