What is the origin of 'kick the bucket'?

Answer 1

someone contemplating suicide would place a rope around a rafter, place the noose around their neck and stand on a bucket. The bucket would then be kicked away and the person would hang until dead. hence the phrase "kick the bucket"

Answer 2

There are two main theories about this one. One suggests that the word doesn't refer to our modern bucket at all, but to a sixteenth century word that comes from the French buque, meaning a yoke or similar piece of wood. It is said that the word was applied in particular to the beam from which a pig was hung in order to be slaughtered. Inevitably, the pig would struggle during the process, and would kick the buque.

The expression is attested to in particular by a citation in the Oxford English Dictionary: "The beam on which a pig is suspended after he has been slaughtered is called in Norfolk, even in the present day, a 'bucket'. Since he is suspended by his heels, the phrase to 'kick the bucket' came to signify to die" (I can't give you a date, as the editors just say it comes from a "modern newspaper", a rather sniffy annotation they used a century ago for sources not considered quite kosher. But it was probably in the 1890s).

The other explanation, much less credible, is that the bucket is the one on which a suicide stands when hanging himself - kick away the bucket and the job is done. I've even seen the story attached specifically to the sad end of an ostler working at an inn on the Great North Road out of London. Don't believe a word of it.

Answer 3

A person who gave up on life would often hang themselves (as it used to be the easiest and quickest way to kill oneself) by tying a noose or loop in a rope, then standing on an upturned bucket to tie the rope to an anchor point at the right height. They would then attach the noose/loop and kick the bucket out from under their feet.

Answer 4

It refers to when a person wants to commit suicide, they stand on a bucket with a rope around their neck, and then kick the bucket out from underneath their feet.

Answer 5

The LITERAL meaning is striking a bucket with your foot, or kicking it.