sayings and where they come from?

Question

Who on earth thought up " Kick the bucket " and more importantly, WHY?

Answer 1

ha-ha I love your question. I will be interested in the answer as well. Let me get searching....

Right this is what I found:

Meaning

To die.

Origin

We all know what a bucket is - and so this phrase appears rather odd. Why should kicking one be associated with dying?

The link between buckets and death was made by at least 1785, when the phrase was defined in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

"To kick the bucket, to die."

One theory as to why, albeit with little evidence to support it, is that the phrase originates from the notion that people hanged themselves by standing on a bucket with a noose around their neck and then kicking the bucket away. There are no citations that relate the phrase to suicide and, in any case, why a bucket? Whenever I've needed something to stand on I can't recall ever opting for a bucket. This theory doesn't stand up any better than the supposed buckets did.

The mist begins to clear with the fact that in 16th century England bucket had an additional meaning (and in some parts it still has), i.e. a beam or yoke used to hang or carry items. The term may have been introduced into English from the French trébuchet - meaning a balance, or buque - meaning a yoke. That meaning of bucket was referred to in Peter Levins' Manipulus vocabulorum. A dictionarie of English and Latine wordes, 1570:

"A Bucket, beame, tollo."

and was used by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part II, 1597:

"Swifter then he that gibbets on the Brewers Bucket." [to gibbet meant to hang]

The wooden frame that was used to hang animals up by their feet for slaughter was called a bucket. Not unnaturally they were likely to struggle or to spasm after death and hence 'kick the bucket'.

I hope this was helpfull.

Answer 2

I have heard that it refers to having a bucket kicked out from under the feet of a person being hanged.

The first answerer pretty well summed it up!

Here are a few other euphemisms for "dying":

Kiss the dust
Bite the dust
Snuff it
Flatline
Meet the reaper
Go toes up
Pushing up daisies
Grinning at the lid
Croak
Give up the ghost

All of these have pretty obvious origins.
There's probably heaps more!

Answer 3

I have a copy of "The Complete Why Do We Say That", according to which the origin is in slaughtering animals.

"The cattle, pigs and sheep were slaughtered after reaching the market and their sometimes still kicking bodies hung on a wooden frame which was known as a bucket beam. This gruesome piece of equipment gave rise to the expression . . .when referring to a person who has died."