to kick the bucket
Preserved but no longer current.
To die. Bucket here is a beam or yoke (O.Fr. buquet^ Fr. trebuchet, a balance), and in East Anglia the big frame in which a newly slaughtered pig is suspended by the beds is still called a "bucket." An alternative theory is offered that the bucket was a pail kicked away by a suicide, who stood on it the better to hang himself.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “to kick the bucket” mean?
To die. Bucket here is a beam or yoke (O.Fr. buquet^ Fr. trebuchet, a balance), and in East Anglia the big frame in which a newly slaughtered pig is suspended by the beds is still called a "bucket." An alternative theory is offered that the bucket was a pail kicked away by a suicide, who stood on it the better to hang himself.
Is “to kick the bucket” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.