kick the bucket

Cultural  

1. To die: “Scarcely anyone was sorry when the old tyrant finally kicked the bucket.”

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kick the bucket Idioms  

1. 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]

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Example Sentences

Madame Ionesco swung her legs until they kicked the bucket, so to speak.

From Literature

"Win a cup before I kick the bucket."

From BBC

"They all thought I was going to kick the bucket, but I won the sweepstake down the golf club."

From BBC

Stocklin didn’t want to kick the bucket without fulfilling his dream of racing hydroplanes.

From Seattle Times

"I suspect my publishers, they're delightful people, but I think they wanted to get it out in a hurry just in case I kicked the bucket before it was time to release the thing."

From BBC