Forms: 3–4 bocket(t, 4 bukket, 4–6 boket(t, 5 buket(t, 5–6 buckette, 3– bucket. [Etymology uncertain: app. a. OF. buket washing tub, milk-pail (Godef. s.v. buquet); cf. OE. búc ‘lagena,’ BOWK.]
1. a. ‘The vessel in which water is drawn out of a well.’ b. ‘The vessels in which water is carried, particularly to quench a fire.’ (J.)
Buckets are usually of leather or wood; now chiefly the latter. The local application of the word varies greatly: in the south-east of England and in U.S. a bucket is a round wooden pail with arched handle; in south of Scotland it is a 4-sided wooden vessel for carrying salt, coal, ashes, etc.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 3306. Wantes vs here … Ne mele, ne bucket, ne funell.
1382. Wyclif, Isa. xl. 15. As a drope of a boket.
1423. James I., Kingis Q., 70. As Tantalus … Water to draw wt buket botemles.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 42. Bokett, situla, mergus.
1552–3. Inv. Ch. Goods Staffs., 12. A pix of masten, a bokett of brasse, vj alter cloths.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., IV. i. 185. Like a deepe Well, That owes two Buckets, filling one another, The emptier euer dancing in the ayre, The other downe, vnseene, and full of Water.
1611. Bible, Pref., 4. Like children at Iacobs well … without a bucket.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), I. 225. Fetch the leathern bucket that hangs in the belfry.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xxii. There are fagots and a bucket of sea-coal in the stone-chest.
1852. Leisure Hour, 632. The blocks of stone which contain the ore are brought up in buckets.
b. Phrase, To give the bucket to: to dismiss; cf. give the bag, the sack. To kick the bucket: see BUCKET2.
1863. Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia’s L., II. 122. He were sore put about because Hester had gi’en him the bucket.
2. The piston of an ordinary lift-pump.
1634. J. B[ate], Myst. Nat. & Art, 9. If you lift the sweepe, it will thrust down the bucket upon the water.
1659. Leak, Water-works, 17. The Sucker … sustains the Water when the Buckets or Suckers of the Pumps are not lifted up.
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, I. 183. This piston is then called the bucket.
3. One of the compartments on the circumference of a water-wheel, which retain the water while they descend; one of the scoops of a dredging machine; one of the series of metal cups on the endless band of a grain-elevator.
1759. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LI. 133. If a stream of water falls into the bucket of an overshot wheel, it is there retained till the wheel by moving round discharges it.
1812. Playfair, Nat. Phil. (1819), I. 217. The momentum of the water in the buckets is equal to the momentum of the resistance.
1831. Lardner, Hydrostatics, x. 198. On the rim of the wheel … a number of cavities, called buckets, are constructed.
4. transf. † a. A cooler over an alembic. b. A leathern socket or rest for the whip in driving, or for the carbine or lance as part of cavalry equipment. c. The socket for the stump in an artificial leg or arm. d. A canvas-covered frame used as a signal for boats. e. Applied to the ‘pitcher’ in certain orchids.
1594. Plat, Jewell-ho., II. 3. The bucket, or cooler in the head [of the Limbeck].
1833. Regul. Instr. Cavalry, I. 103. Draw the carbine from the bucket. Ibid., 161. The lance is to rest with the butt-end in the bucket on the right stirrup.
1863. Whyte-Melville, Ins. Bar (ed. 12), 250. I put the whip in the bucket, and drove steadily on.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6), II. ix. 178. A bucket, with an aperture like a spout, is formed in an orchid.
5. Comb., as bucket-engine, a machine having buckets attached to an endless chain running over sprocket-wheels, so as to utilize the power of a small stream of water with a good fall; † bucket-fountain, a means of raising water with buckets; bucket-hook (U.S.), a contrivance for attaching a bucket to the sugar-maple tree, for the purpose of catching the sap; bucket-lift, a set of iron pipes attached to a lift-pump; bucket-pump, a lift-pump; bucket-rod, a rod carrying the piston of a lift-pump; bucket-rope (see quot.); bucket-valve, a round valve employed in the air-pump of a steam-engine; bucket-well, a well from which the water is drawn by a bucket; bucket-wheel, an ancient contrivance for raising water, consisting of buckets fixed round a wheel, or attached to a rope passing round a wheel, which fill at the bottom and empty themselves into a trough at the top.
1655. Mrq. Worcester, Cent. Inv., Index 3. A Bucket-fountain [How to raise water constantly with two Buckets onely—art. 21].
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., vi. 27. The Bucket rope that is tied to the Bucket by which you hale and draw water vp by the ships side.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Navy of Landships, Wks. I. 81/1. The Guestrope, Bucketrope, and Porterope … were all of rare stuffes of great price.
1813. Examiner, 11 Jan., 22/1. The female was found in a bucket well.
