kick the bucket
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To die: “Scarcely anyone was sorry when the old tyrant finally kicked the bucket.”
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The rainy weather could not ________ my elated spirits on my graduation day.
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Words nearby kick the bucket
kickshaw, kicksorter, kickstand, kick-start, kick starter, kick the bucket, kick the habit, kick turn, kickup, kick up a fuss, kick up one's heels
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
How to use kick the bucket in a sentence
Other Idioms and Phrases with kick the bucket
kick the bucket
Die, as in All of my goldfish kicked the bucket while we were on vacation. This moderately impolite usage has a disputed origin. Some say it refers to committing suicide by hanging, in which one stands on a bucket, fastens a rope around one's neck, and kicks the bucket away. A more likely origin is the use of bucket in the sense of “a beam from which something may be suspended” because pigs were suspended by their heels from such beams after being slaughtered, the term kick the bucket came to mean “to die.” [Colloquial; late 1700s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.