Evidence status: DISPUTED

English has dozens of euphemisms for dying.

We pass away, pop our clogs, meet our maker, shuffle off this mortal coil — and, rather strangely, kick the bucket.

The phrase is old.

The reason for the bucket is still uncertain.

The Short Answer

“Kick the bucket” has meant to die since at least 1775 and was established slang by the 1780s.

Two major explanations compete for its origin.

One connects the phrase with hanging: a person standing on a bucket or pail kicks it away and is left suspended.

The other uses an older meaning of bucket for a beam or yoke from which slaughtered animals could be hung, their legs moving or “kicking” after death.

Both explanations are plausible.

Neither has been conclusively proved.

What We Know

The phrase appears surprisingly clearly in the late eighteenth century.

In Edward Thompson’s The History of Edward and Maria, published in 1775, one character expresses relief that an old shipmate has not “kicked the bucket.”

The meaning is plainly that he has not died.

Only a few years later, another published passage explicitly comments on the strange expression, explaining that “kicking the bucket” is used to announce somebody's death.

Francis Grose then included kick the bucket in his influential Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue in 1785, glossing it as meaning to die.

The Oxford English Dictionary likewise dates the death sense to 1775.

So by the late eighteenth century, the expression was established slang.

What those early sources do not tell us is why.

How It Became a Habit

Death attracts euphemisms.

Some are gentle:

passed away

Others are deliberately comic or irreverent:

croaked

popped off

kicked the bucket

That dark humour allows speakers to discuss something frightening or painful without naming it directly.

Once “kick the bucket” became recognisable slang for dying, speakers no longer needed to understand the original metaphor.

The bucket could remain mysterious.

The meaning did not.

The Story Everyone Tells

The simplest explanation involves hanging.

A person intending to hang themselves stands on a bucket while securing a rope above.

They then kick the bucket away.

The support disappears, leaving them suspended.

There are historical examples of people using buckets in exactly this way.

A London newspaper in 1788 reported the death of a labourer who stood on a bucket while fastening a rope to a beam and then kicked the bucket away.

It appears to explain the phrase perfectly.

Except for one problem.

The expression was already in use before that report appeared.

What the Evidence Actually Says

The hanging explanation remains possible.

The 1788 incident does not have to be the first time such a method was used, and similar events may well have occurred earlier.

But the existence of a literal bucket being kicked during a hanging does not prove that this action created the idiom.

There is another serious theory.

Historically, bucket could refer not only to a pail but also to a beam, yoke or similar supporting device.

Animals slaughtered for meat could be suspended from such a beam. Their legs might move as they died or after death.

The Oxford English Dictionary historically regarded this explanation as plausible, and later writers connected it particularly with slaughterhouse terminology.

Again, however, there is a missing link.

Researchers have not produced convincing early evidence of butchers themselves describing a dying animal as “kicking the bucket.”

Oxford etymologist Anatoly Liberman therefore warns against converting the slaughterhouse theory from an interesting hypothesis into established fact.

There are also older associations between hanging, kicking legs and forms of the word bucket, which may have helped shape the expression without providing one single moment of invention.

Our verdict:

DOCUMENTED: “Kick the bucket” meant to die by 1775.

PLAUSIBLE: The phrase may relate to kicking away a physical bucket during a hanging.

PLAUSIBLE: It may instead involve the older beam or yoke meaning of bucket and slaughtered animals.

DISPUTED: The surviving evidence does not allow us to choose confidently between them.

Why It Stuck

Because it makes death sound almost slapstick.

That may seem strange, but humans frequently use humour to take some of the power away from frightening subjects.

“Kick the bucket” turns the final event of a life into an absurd physical action involving an everyday object.

The mystery probably helps.

Most people who use the phrase today have never wondered which bucket anybody was supposed to kick.

They simply know what happens afterwards.

Related Curiosities

Sources & Further Reading

Wordorigins.org — “kick the bucket / bucket list”

Traces the phrase to 1775, discusses the hanging evidence and explores the older meaning of bucket. Read the Wordorigins research

Oxford English Dictionary

Records the colloquial meaning “to die” from 1775.

Oxford University Press — Anatoly Liberman, “More on idioms: kick the bucket”

Reviews the hanging and slaughterhouse explanations and explains why neither should be presented as proven. Read the Oxford etymology discussion

Last checked: 19 September 2026