bucket

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a roughly cylindrical vessel that is open at the top
  2. noun the quantity contained in a bucket
  3. verb put into a bucket

Etymology

From Middle English buket, boket, partly from Old English bucc ("bucket, pitcher"; mod. dialectal buck), equivalent to bouk + -et; and partly from Anglo-Norman buket, buquet (“tub; pail”) (compare Norman boutchet, Norman bouquet), diminutive of Old French buc (“abdomen; object with a cavity”), from Vulgar Latin *būcus (compare Occitan and Catalan buc, Italian buco, buca (“hole, gap”)), from Frankish *būk (“belly, stomach”). Both the Old English and Frankish terms derive from Proto-Germanic *būkaz (“belly, stomach”). More at bouk.

In classic literature

Synonyms

pail

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