Buck

How to spell buck

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce buck

What does buck mean?

1. nounThe male of certain animals, especially a deer, rabbit, or goat.
2. nounAn informal term for one dollar.
3. verbOf a horse: to leap with an arched back, often to throw off a rider.

Buck in a sentence

• noun

  The hunter spotted a young buck at the edge of the clearing.

• noun

  The coffee only cost a buck, so he paid in coins.

• verb

  The nervous pony began to buck the moment the saddle touched its back.

• noun

  The breeder kept one buck and several does in the rabbit hutch.

• noun

  The sandwich cost barely a buck at the corner shop.

• verb

  A wild stallion will often buck until the inexperienced rider falls.

Where does buck come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Buck comes from Old English, where two closely related words sat side by side: bucca, meaning a male goat, and buc, meaning a male deer or stag. Both trace back to a Germanic root for a horned male animal, with relatives in Dutch bok and German Bock. The animal sense is the oldest, and from the leaping, kicking behaviour of such animals the verb sense (to throw a rider with an arched leap) developed in the early 1800s, especially in American and colonial usage. The famous money sense, an informal dollar, is American and probably comes from buckskin, since deer hides were once traded as a unit of value on the frontier. The spelling stays mercifully simple, a short word with the -ck ending that English regularly uses after a short vowel.

How the word is built

• buck (whole word, from Old English bucca: male goat, and buc: male deer)