Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Buck

Buck (bŭk), n. [Akin to LG. büke, Dan. byg, Sw. byk, G. bauche: cf. It. bucato, Prov. Sp. bugada, F. buée.] 1. Lye or suds in which cloth is soaked in the operation of bleaching, or in which clothes are washed.

2. The cloth or clothes soaked or washed. [Obs.] Shak.

Buck, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bucked (bŭkt); p. pr. & vb. n. Bucking.] [OE. bouken; akin to LG. büken, Dan. byge, Sw. byka, G. bauchen, beuchen; cf. OF. buer. Cf. the preceding noun.] 1. To soak, steep, or boil, in lye or suds; — a process in bleaching.

2. To wash (clothes) in lye or suds, or, in later usage, by beating them on stones in running water.

3. (Mining) To break up or pulverize, as ores.

Buck, n. [OE. buk, bucke, AS. bucca, bua, he-goat; akin to D. bok, OHG. pocch, G. bock, Ir. boc, W. bwch, Corn. byk; cf. Zend būza, Skr. bukka. √256. Cf. Butcher, n.] 1. The male of deer, especially fallow deer and antelopes, or of goats, sheep, hares, and rabbits.

☞ A male fallow deer is called a fawn in his first year; a pricket in his second; a sorel in his third; a sore in his fourth; a buck of the first head in his fifth; and a great buck in his sixth. The female of the fallow deer is termed a doe. The male of the red deer is termed a stag or hart and not a buck, and the female is called a hind. Brande & C.

2. A gay, dashing young fellow; a fop; a dandy.

The leading bucks of the day. Thackeray.

3. A male Indian or negro. [Colloq. U.S.]

☞ The word buck is much used in composition for the names of antelopes; as, bush buck, spring buck.

Blue buck. See under Blue. — Water buck, a South African variety of antelope (Kobus ellipsiprymnus). See Illust. of Antelope.

Buck (bŭk), v. i. 1. To copulate, as bucks and does.

2. To spring with quick plunging leaps, descending with the fore legs rigid and the head held as low down as possible; — said of a vicious horse or mule.

Buck, v. t. 1. (Mil.) To subject to a mode of punishment which consists in tying the wrists together, passing the arms over the bent knees, and putting a stick across the arms and in the angle formed by the knees.

2. To throw by bucking. See Buck, v. i., 2.

The brute that he was riding had nearly bucked him out of the saddle. W. E. Norris.

Buck, n. A frame on which firewood is sawed; a sawhorse; a sawbuck.

Buck saw, a saw set in a frame and used for sawing wood on a sawhorse.

Buck, n. [See Beech, n.] The beech tree. [Scot.]

Buck mast, the mast or fruit of the beech tree. Johnson.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.