Where'd we get the expression, "kick the bucket", to mean dying?

Question

When someone dies, we often hear, "He kicked the bucket." Where did we get that expression?

Answer 1

From Sayings and Phrases (http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html):

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'.

Answer 2

I'm going to try and be a little more original here. I believe it comes from the late 1800s from the French word buque which referred to the slab of wood that pigs were hung by their feet to be slaughtered. During the process the pig would kick the buque from which it was hung until it died and an expression, kicking the buque meant to be dying.

Kicking the bucket under oneself to hang oneself is a less credible explanation even though it makes more sense to the English speaker.

Answer 3

I'm a native french speaker and I have never heard this expression before, I don't think dies and hore are french words....are you sure it'french? Maybe creole or very very old french?

Answer 4

Cindy: Two guesses,(as though I were Playing "Says You"). When the one dieing did so, maybe it was considered (poeticly), that he had "split" his life. Works for me