[f. BUCK v.1 + -ING1.] The operation of steeping or boiling yarn, cloth, or clothes in a lye of wood-ashes, etc., in the old process of bleaching, or in buck-washing; the quantity of clothes, etc., so treated; app. also the lye used in the process. (Cf. blacking.)
1483. Cath. Angl., 38. A Bowkynge, lixiuarium.
a. 1500. Deguileville, MS. Pilgr. Life of Manhode, 21 b, in Cath. Angl., 38. Of thaym I make a bowkynge for to putte in and bowke and wasche alle fylthes.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. iii. 140. Throw fowle linnen vpon him, as if it were going to bucking.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., Bucking of cloth is the first step or degree of whitening it.
1818. Hogg, Brownie of Bodsb., II. 161 (Jam.). Help me to the water wi’ a boucking o’ claes?
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, II. 163. This alternate bucking and exposing on the grass is the old manner of bleaching.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 364. Boiling in an alkaline lye, or, in other words, bucking or bowking.
2. Comb., as bucking-basket, -cloth, -house, -stoke, -stool, -tub, -vat. Also bucking-ashes = buck-ashes (BUCK sb.3 5); bucking-keir, -washing, see quots.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 65 b. The Gardners use to lay *bucking ashes about it.
1832. Scott, Nigel, ii. Off with Janet in her own *bucking-basket.
1551–60. Inv., in H. Hall, Soc. in Elizab. Age (1886), 152. A Bucking Tubb. A *Bucking clothe and a paile.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. v. (1668), 138. Cover the uppermost Yarn with a bucking-cloth.
1597. Manchester Crt. Leet Records (1885), II. 124. From the northe to the *bowking howse eight and fortie yards.
1810. Henry, Elem. Chem. (1826), II. 274. The goods … are laid in a large wooden vat or *bowking keir.
1483. Cath. Angl., 38. A *Bowkynstoke, lixiuatorium.
1654. Gayton, Festiv. Notes, III. iii. (L.). No bigger than a toad upon a *bucking-stool.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. v. (1668), 138. You shall pull out the spigget of the *bucking-tub.
a. 1652. Brome, Queen’s Exch., II. ii. Their Buckets shall they bring … Their Bucking tubs, Baskets and Battledoors.
1822. Imison, Sc. & Art, II. 163. It is then returned again into the *bucking vat.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xvii. ‘I’ll cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand *bouking-washing.’
1808–25. Jamieson, Dict., Boukin-washing, Boukit-washin’, the great annual purification of the family linen, by means of bouk.
