Meaning & use
buck
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
An adult male deer, rabbit, goat or similar animal.
Grammar: The female is a doe.
Patterns
- a buck and a doe
A buck with large antlers crossed the field.
The hunter spotted a young buck.
The rabbit buck chased the doe.
nouncountableinformalAmerican
A dollar.
Grammar: Informal, mainly American and Canadian.
Patterns
- ten bucks
That sandwich cost me eight bucks.
Can you lend me a few bucks?
She made a quick buck selling lemonade.
verbintransitive
To jump upward with the back arched, as a horse does to throw off a rider.
Grammar: Often used about horses and bulls.
The horse bucked and threw the rider.
The bull bucked in the arena.
The old truck bucked over the ruts.
verbtransitiveinformal
To resist or go against something.
Grammar: Informal; the object is a trend or system: buck the trend.
Patterns
- buck the trend
- buck the system
The shop bucked the trend by growing in a recession.
He likes to buck the system.
She bucked tradition by wearing red.
phraseidiominformal
In the phrase pass the buck, to blame someone else for what you should handle.
Grammar: Pass the buck to someone.
Patterns
- pass the buck to someone
Don't pass the buck to your team.
He passed the buck to accounting.
The buck stops here.
Word forms
| third person singular | bucks |
|---|---|
| past tense | bucked |
| past participle | bucked |
| -ing form | bucking |
| plural | bucks |
Common combinations
- buck the trend
- The brand bucked the trend and grew.
- make a quick buck
- He wanted to make a quick buck.
- pass the buck
- Managers sometimes pass the buck.
- bang for your buck
- This phone gives you more bang for your buck.
- buck up
- Buck up, the day will get better.
Synonyms and how they differ
- stag
- Stag is used for an adult male red deer, and buck is used for smaller deer and other animals.
- dollar
- Dollar is the formal name; buck is slang.
- defy
- Defy is more formal and means openly resisting.
- resist
- Resist is neutral and does not carry buck's casual, rebellious tone.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: buck or duck?
buck vs duck
Duck is a bird and is sometimes confused with buck in spelling.
Practice
The startup decided to ______ the trend and open new stores during the downturn.
Choose one answer.
Buck the trend means to go against it. The other options do not form this idiom.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “buck”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.