arch. and dial. Also 6 bucke, bouke, bouck, 9 dial. book, bock. [In the sense of lye, washing,’ evidently belonging to BUCK v.1, of which it is perh. a direct derivative. Whether sense 1 washing-tub’ (?) has the same origin, or whether the word in this sense is distinct, and to be referred to OE. bric, ? buc, ‘lagena’ (see BOWK) is not evident.]
† 1. ? A washing tub, a vat in which to steep clothes in lye.
1530. Palsgr., 201/2. Bucke to wasshe clothes in, couier.
2. Lye in which linen, yarn, or cloth, is steeped or boiled as a first step in the process of buck-washing or bleaching.
[1530. Palsgr., 200/1. Bouke of clothes, buće.]
1560. Whitehorne, Ord. Souldiours (1588), 45 b. Take of … ashes that haue serued in a buck … halfe a part.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. v. (1668), 139. Give it … a couple of clean Bucks, the next fortnight following.
1721. Bailey, Buck, a Lye made of Ashes.
1808–25. Jamieson, Dict., Bouk, a lye made of cow’s dung and stale urine or soapy water, in which foul linen is steeped in order to its being cleansed or whitened.
3. A quantity of clothes, cloth, or yarn, put through the process of bucking, in buckwashing or bleaching; the quantity of clothes washed at once, a ‘wash.’ To lay the buck: to lay to steep in lye. To drive the buck: to carry through the process of bucking.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. (1557), 428/2. A womanne washeth a bucke of clothes.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 166. Maides, three a clock, knede, lay your bucks, or go brew.
1603. Harsnet, Pop. Impost., 26. Being one day in the kitchen wringing out a Bucke of Cloathes.
1648. Herrick, Cheap Laundress. The laundresses, they envie her good-luck, Who can with so small charges drive the buck.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), V. 58. A jolly brown Wench, a-washing of her Buck.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Bucking, To drive a buck of yarn, they first cover the bottom of the bucking tub with fine ashes of the ash-tree, [etc.].
1862. Barnes, Rhymes Dorset Dial., I. 159. She can iron up an’ vwold A book o’clothes wi young or wold.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., xxxii. (ed. 12), 198. She … pointed to the great bock of wash.
† 4. See quot.: but cf. BUCK v.5, BUCKING4. Obs.
1683. Pettus, Fleta Min., I. (1686), 109. It is better … that the Oars … were brought under the Buck or washing place.
5. Comb., as buck-basket, -clothes, -sheet, -vat; buck-ashes, ashes that have served for making lye, formerly used as manure; † buck-house, a house for ‘bucking’ in; buck-lye (see quot.) Also BUCK-WASHING.
1563. Hyll, Art Garden. (1593), xlix. Sage is … to bee couered about with *Bucke ashes.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. v. 86. In her inuention they conuey’d me into a *bucke-basket.
1881. R. G. White, Eng. Without & Within, 186. She turned to an ironing table and began to sprinkle clothes that lay in a large buck-basket.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 54. I did not goe dropping through the streets like a basket of *Buck-cloathes.
1620. Unton Inventories (1841), 28. In the Wash howse and Well howse one *Bouckfatt.
1738. Belfast Newsp., in Antrim & Down Gloss. (E. D. S.), 14. A good buck-house, about 80 feet long, with a well-watered bleaching green.
1632. Sherwood, *Bucke-lie, buee.
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Wd.-bk., Buck-lee, a lye of wood-ashes obtained from burning green ‘brash’ or fern, the latter being esteemed the best.
