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Webster 1913 Edition

Bucket

Buck′et

,
Noun.
[OE.
boket
; cf. AS.
buc
pitcher, or Corn.
buket
tub.]
1.
A vessel for drawing up water from a well, or for catching, holding, or carrying water, sap, or other liquids.
The old oaken
bucket
, the iron-bound
bucket
,
The moss-covered
bucket
, which hung in the well.
Wordsworth.
2.
A vessel (as a tub or scoop) for hoisting and conveying coal, ore, grain, etc.
3.
(Mach.)
One of the receptacles on the rim of a water wheel into which the water rushes, causing the wheel to revolve; also, a float of a paddle wheel.
4.
The valved piston of a lifting pump.
Fire bucket
,
a bucket for carrying water to put out fires.
–
To kick the bucket
,
to die.
[Low]

Webster 1828 Edition

Bucket

BUCK'ET

,
Noun.
1.
The vessel in which water is drawn out of a well; it is nearly in the form of a pail.
2.
A vessel or pail used at sea to draw water up at the side of a ship, for washing the decks, &c.
3.
A vessel made of leather, nearly in the form of a pail, but narrower and deeper, used to convey water by hand for extinguishing fires.

Definition 2024

bucket

bucket

See also: bücket

English

A plastic bucket

Noun

bucket ‎(plural buckets)

  1. A container made of rigid material, often with a handle, used to carry liquids or small items.
    I need a bucket to carry the water from the well.
    • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1
      The crab was cool and very light. But the water was thick with sand, and so, scrambling down, Jacob was about to jump, holding his bucket in front of him, when he saw, stretched entirely rigid, side by side, their faces very red, an enormous man and woman.
  2. The amount held in this container.
    The horse drank a whole bucket of water.
  3. (Britain, archaic) A unit of measure equal to four gallons.
  4. Part of a piece of machinery that resembles a bucket.
  5. (slang) An old car that is not in good working order.
  6. (basketball, informal) The basket.
    The forward drove to the bucket.
  7. (basketball, informal) A field goal.
    We can't keep giving up easy buckets.
  8. (variation management) A mechanism for avoiding the allocation of targets in cases of mismanagement.
  9. (computing) A storage space in a hash table for every item sharing a particular key.
  10. (informal, chiefly plural) A large amount of liquid.
    It rained buckets yesterday.
    I was so nervous that I sweated buckets.
  11. A bucket bag.
    • 1989, Susan Ludwig, Janice Steinberg, Petite Style (page 46)
      Avoid bulky styles such as duffle sacks, buckets, doctors' satchels, and hobos.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Verb

bucket ‎(third-person singular simple present buckets, present participle bucketing, simple past and past participle bucketed)

  1. (transitive) To place inside a bucket.
  2. (transitive) To draw or lift in, or as if in, buckets.
    to bucket water
  3. (intransitive, informal) To rain heavily.
    • It’s really bucketing down out there.
  4. (intransitive, informal) To travel very quickly.
    • The boat is bucketing along.
  5. (computing, transitive) To categorize (data) by splitting it into buckets, or groups of related items.
    • 2002, Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi, Masayuki Numao, Rüdiger Reischuk, Algorithmic Learning Theory: 13th International Conference (page 352)
      These candidates are then bucketed into a discretized version of the space of all possible lines.
    • 2008, Hari Mohan Pandey, Design Analysis and Algorithm (page 136)
      Thus, sorting each bucket takes O(1) times. The total effort of bucketing, sorting buckets, and concotenating[sic] the sorted buckets together is O(n).
  6. (transitive) To ride (a horse) hard or mercilessly.
  7. (transitive, Britain, rowing) To make, or cause to make (the recovery), with a certain hurried or unskillful forward swing of the body.

Synonyms

Translations

References

  • bucket in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Etymology

From Middle English boket, buket, partly from Anglo-Norman buket, buquet ‎(“tub, pail”) (compare Norman boutchet, Norman bouquet), diminutive of Old French buc ‎(“abdomen; object with a cavity”), from Vulgar Latin *būco (compare Occitan/Catalan buc, Italian buco, buca ‎(“hole, gap”)), from Old Frankish *būk ‎(“belly, stomach”), and partly from Old English bucc ‎(“bucket, pitcher”) (mod. dialectal buck), both from Proto-Germanic *būkaz ‎(“belly, stomach”), equivalent to bouk +‎ -et. More at bouk.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: bûk'ĭt, IPA(key): /ˈbʌkɪt/
  • Rhymes: -ʌkɪt

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