When friends came to pray... they would sprinkle the body with holy water ... it is easy to see how such a saying as "kicking the bucket" came about. For as long as I can remember, in Britain, the expression “kick the bucket” has meant to DIE. What's the origin of the phrase 'Kick the bucket'? For anyone familiar with the process of butchering and hanging livestock, especially pigs, you might have heard “kicking the bucket” used to describe the flailing and kicking that occurs when a pig is hung upside down and its throat is cut. Kick the bucket definition at Dictionary.com, a free online dictionary with pronunciation, synonyms and translation. A common theory is that the idiom refers to hanging, either as a method of execution or suicide. Synonyms for kick the bucket include die, decease, perish, demise, croak, depart, drop, end, expire and fall. The term may have been introduced into English from the French trébuchet - meaning a balance, or buque - meaning a yoke. This is part of a complete episode. It has to do with an older meaning of bucket that refers to the wooden beam often found in a barn roof, where an animal carcass might be hung. (idiomatic, euphemistic, colloquial) To die.The old horse finally kicked the bucket. "The doubts OED has about the Scandinavian origin of kick are probably unfounded" [Liberman]. Another, more plausible, theory refers to the archaic meaning of the word bucket, which used to mean beam in 16th century England. Origin Theories. What does Kicked the bucket expression mean? Goodbye! The 'things to do before you kick the bucket' source for 'bucket list' is obviously correct. Kick the bucket: To die Informal In suicidal hanging. What does kick the bucket expression mean? 7. From Middle English gibet, from Old French gibet (French gibet), either from Frankish *gibb (“forked stick”) or from Latin gibbus (“hunchbacked”). The other possible origin refers to a method of hanging oneself, which involved standing on a bucket, tightening the noose, and then kicking away the bucket. Whenever I've needed something to stand on I can't recall ever opting for a bucket. To extend the leg away from the body; strike out with the foot or feet. 1. It is believed that the origin of the term "bucket list" is closely related to the idiom "kick the bucket." The link between buckets and death was made by at least 1785, when the phrase was defined in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: One theory, albeit with little evidence to support it, is that the phrase originates from the notion that people hanged themselves by standing on a bucket with a noose around their neck and then kicking the bucket away. One common theory is of hanging, when a person standing on a bucket with a noose over the head kicks the bucket and hence, dies. Alternatively, in the moment of death a person stretches his legs (Spanish: Estirar la pata means "to die") and so might kick the bucket placed there. Origin The wooden frame that slaughtered animals were hung from is known as a bucket. We all know what a bucket is - and so this phrase appears rather odd. To kick the bucket definition: If you say that someone has kicked the bucket , you mean that they have died. Definition of kick the bucket in the Idioms Dictionary. Meaning: v. pass from physical life and lose all bodily … While the origins of the phrase kick the bucket might be more shocking than some expect, this phrase no longer has the intensely morbid connotations it may have had in the past. "Relics of Popery", Catholic Truth Society London. A sorting algorithm called a bucket, hence the expression also had the must. The wooden frame that was used to say someone is dead or has deceased likely source this... 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