buck

noun

1. A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad and kangaroo.
2. (US)An uncastrated sheep, a ram.
3. (Africa)An antelope of either sex; compare with Afrikaans bok.

   “There are all kinds of game in the valley, and you are unlucky if you do not see a giraffe or an ostrich, or at least a herd of buck.”

4. The sound made by a chicken.
5. A young buck; an adventurous, impetuous, dashing, or high-spirited young man.

   “Swankey of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tête-à-tête with Amelia, and describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence […]”

6. (British, obsolete)A fop or dandy.

   “This pusillanimous creature thinks himself, and would be thought, a buck.”

   “The Captain was then a buck and dandy, during the reign of those two successive dynasties, of the first rank of the second order ; the characteristic of which very respectable rank of fashionables I hold to be, that their spurs impinge upon the pavement oftener than upon the sides of a horse.”

7. (US, dated, derogatory)A black or Native American man.

   “As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl.”

   “But this buck claimed he was a big war chief with the Nawyecky Comanches.”

   “She got so she’d rather have a buck nigger than me!”

   “Her curly red hair loose from its combs hangin' down her back and her freckled skin bare, and a big ole nigger buck was doin' things to her! He'd always known that Hootch Carter raped and killed Becky Nell, never had reason to doubt it.”

8. (Australia, derogatory, obsolete)An Aboriginal man.

   “‘A couple of Old Men wanted that young lubra and they’ve spurred on the bucks to chase Possum and cut his liver out.’”

9. (US, slang)Lowest rank; a private.
10. (Australia, Canada, New-Zealand, US, informal)A unit of a particular currency

    “Can I borrow five bucks?”

    “Won't yer give Jake ten bucks ter buy hisself some close, so he look nice 'mong de gemmens?”

11. (South-Africa, informal)A unit of a particular currency
12. (UK, obsolete, slang)A unit of a particular currency

    “three and a buck”

13. (informal, rare)A unit of a particular currency

    “Those fools are all probably sitting outside the pork store, recalling the incident about losing a thousand bucks with the fake Gajas, and chewing on their soggy stogies.”

14. (Australia, South-Africa, US, broadly, informal)A unit of a particular currency

    “Corporations will do anything to make a buck.”

    “It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.”

15. A unit of a particular currency
16. (US, slang)One hundred.

    “The police caught me driving a buck forty [140 miles per hour] on the freeway.”

    “That skinny guy? C’mon, he can’t weigh more than a buck and a quarter [125 pounds].”

17. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping)Clipping of buckshot.

    “He loaded the shotgun with two rounds of double-ought buck.”

18. (UK, dialectal)An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.
19. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.
20. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.
21. An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.

    “Plans in hand, Frank first paid his friend Raniero a visit, and the artisan quickly went to work on a fortified wood buck that would serve as a form for the Griffith 600 Series, as the car was formally known and marketed by Griffith Motors.”

22. (dated)An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.
23. (broadly, dated)An implement the body of which is likened to a male sheep’s body due maintaining a stiff-legged position as if by stubbornness.

    “pass the buck”

    “the buck stops here”

24. (dated)Synonym of buck dance.
25. Synonym of mule (“type of cocktail with ginger ale etc.”).
26. (dated, slang)A kind of large marble in children's games.
27. (UK, obsolete, slang)An unlicensed cabman.
28. (Scotland)The beech tree.

    “There is in it also woodes of buck, and deir in them.”

    “But, whilst we thus condemn the timber, we must not omit to praise the mast, which fats our swine and deer, and hath, in some families, even supported men with bread. Chios endured a memorable siege by the beniefit of this mast. And, in some parts of France, they now grind the buck in mills; it affords a sweet oil, which the poor people east most willingly.”

    “The HORNBEAM ( provincially “HORSE-BEECH," in contradistinction to “buck beech” — the true beech) is, in many woods, the most prevalent species; and being drawn up in thickets with a rapid growth, becomes tall and straight enough for hop poles: and is even suffered to grow up, as a species of wood timber.”

    “The magnolia, buck [ beech?], and poplar never grow on lands subject to overflow.”

    “The underbrush is all there, spice brush, buck beech, iron wood and alder and no doubt in the spring of the year, there is a wealth of flowers.”

29. (archaic)Lye or suds in which cloth is soaked in the operation of bleaching, or in which clothes are washed.

    “1673, Robert Almond, The English Horseman and Complete Farrier, London: Simon Miller, Chapter 25 “Maunginess in the Main,” p. 236, […] when you find the scurf to fall off, wash the Neck and other parts with Buck Lye made blood warm.”

30. (archaic)The cloth or clothes soaked or washed.

    “Buck! I would I could wash myself of the buck!”

31. (UK, archaic, dialectal)The body of a cart or waggon, especially the front part.
32. (UK, archaic, dialectal)Belly, breast, chest.
33. (UK, archaic, dialectal)Size.

verb

1. (intransitive)To copulate, as bucks and does.
2. (intransitive)To bend; buckle.
3. (intransitive)To leap upward arching its back, coming down with head low and forelegs stiff, forcefully kicking its hind legs upward, often in an attempt to dislodge or throw a rider or pack.

   “1849, Jackey Jackey, The Statement of the Aboriginal Native Jackey Jackey, who Accompanied Mr. Kennedy, William Carron, Narrative of an Expedition Undertaken Under the Direction of the Late Mr. Assistant Surveyor E. B. Kennedy, 2004 Gutenberg Australia eBook #0201121, At the same time we got speared, the horses got speared too, and jumped and bucked all about, and got into the swamp.”

4. (transitive)To throw (a rider or pack) by bucking.

   “The brute that he was riding had nearly bucked him out of the saddle.”

5. (broadly, intransitive)To resist obstinately; oppose or object strongly.

   “The vice president bucked at the board’s latest solution.”

6. (broadly, intransitive)To move or operate in a sharp, jerking, or uneven manner.

   “The motor bucked and sputtered before dying completely.”

7. (broadly, transitive)To overcome or shed (e.g., an impediment or expectation), in pursuit of a goal; to force a way through despite (an obstacle); to resist or proceed against.

   “The plane bucked a strong headwind.”

   “Our managers have to learn to buck the trend and do the right thing for their employees.”

   “John is really bucking the odds on that risky business venture. He's doing quite well.”

   “I spoke to him in London recently and suggested he was bucking an age-old system. Surely popular performers studied the possible reactions of their audience in advance when deciding on a new approach?”

   “1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure [I] Asked if he wanted to go to a punk rock concert Saturday & he had another engagement but he would buck it because it sure sounded much more fun going with me.”

8. (transitive)To subject to a mode of punishment which consists of tying the wrists together, passing the arms over the bent knees, and putting a stick across the arms and in the angle formed by the knees.
9. (US, slang)To strive or aspire e.g. to a promotion.
10. To press a heavy, shaped bucking bar against the bucktail of a rivet, while the opposite end (the rivet factory head) is hammered by a rivet gun, to upset the bucktail into an appropriate shape, most commonly a pancake-shape.
11. To saw a felled tree into shorter lengths, as for firewood.
12. To output a voltage that is lower than the input voltage.
13. (Ireland, euphemistic, humorous)To fuck.

    “Well he yoked the ass up to the cart. And then the holy ructions it did start. Well he bucked it in the air and he bucked it all around. Till he smashed the buckin' cart upon the ground.”

    “Thatch had come down the stairs and chimed in: "Isn't he an awful buckin' eejit?"”

    “"Was he a buccaneer?" I asked. "No, eejit!" Lionel said. Never one to pass up a play on words, he continued, "He's a buckin' IRA man and he's gathering up an army in the Irish Free State. He says he's going to march up to Ulster and drive all of us Protestants into the Irish Sea!"”

    “"I can see the headlines in the morning, taxi man bucking hangs himself.”

    “I will buck a French lad, Erin. I will buck a French lad, so help me God.”

14. (Multicultural-London-English)To meet, to encounter, to come across.

    “If I buck a paigon, I will disappoint his mum”

    “I go mad when I buck me a opper, chest and back and I fucked up his posture”

15. (archaic)To soak, steep or boil in lye or suds, as part of the bleaching process.
16. (archaic)To wash (clothes) in lye or suds, or, in later usage, by beating them on stones in running water
17. (archaic)To break up or pulverize, as ores.

    “This [ore mixture] was bucked or cobbed down to a 'peasy' size (i.e. the size of a pea) or less, using a flat-bottomed bucking hammer, and then riddled into coarse peasy and finer (sand-sized) 'smitham' grades.”

18. (UK, archaic, dialectal, intransitive)To swell out.
19. (archaic, intransitive, slang)To boast or brag.

    “And then […] he bucks with a quiet stubborn determination that would fill an American editor, or an Under Secretary of State with despair. He belongs to the 12-foot-tiger school, so perhaps he can't help it.”

    “He was certainly bucking about his trophies, and for the sake of the argument you will be good enough to admit that you probably bucked about yours. What happens? You are overheard; you are followed; you are worked into the same scheme, and robbed on the same night.”

name

1. An English surname transferred from the nickname.

   “The vote was 213-209 along party lines. Republican members of the House Ethics Committee – Michael Guest of Mississippi, Dave Joyce of Ohio, Andrew Garbarino of New York, John Rutherford of Florida and Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota – voted present. GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado also voted present but he is not on the Ethics Committee.”

2. A male given name from Old English.
3. A German surname, a variant of Buch.
4. An unincorporated community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States.
5. A township in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
6. A township in Hardin County, Ohio, United States.