4. (Western American.)—To play against the bank, usually ‘to buck the
tiger.’—See following.
1879. Bret Harte, Gabriel Conroy, p. 375. I don’t like your looks
at all. I’d buck against any bank you ran, all night.
1880. Bret Harte, Brown of Calaveras. (Tales of the Arg., p. 81).
Why don’t you say you want to buck agin’ faro?
1888. Hotel Mail.
A man may hunt the wildest game
Along the Nile or the Niger,
In woods or ranch;
But he will find the sport most tame
Compared with bucking the tiger
At dear Long Branch.
5. (Western American.)—To put forth one’s whole energy. [An extension
of meaning from sense 4.]
1870. San Antonio Paper. ‘You’ll have to buck at it like a whole
team, gentlemen, or you won’t hear the whistle near your diggings
for many a year.’
To run a buck, verbal phr. (old Irish).—To poll a bad vote at an
election.—Grose.
Buck or fight the tiger, verbal phr. (American).—To gamble. [There are
two derivations suggested:—(1) that the phrase is derived from the
parti-coloured division or stripes on a gambling table; (2) that it is
of Chinese origin. A favourite figure of one of the Chinese gods of
gambling is a tiger standing on his hind-feet, and grasping a large
cash in his mouth or his paws. Sometimes the image is made of wood or
clay, or drawn on a piece of paper or board. The title of the beast,
His Excellency the Grasping Cash Tiger, is frequently written on a
piece of paper, and placed in the gambling rooms between two bunches of
mock-money suspended under the table or on the wall behind it. This
figure is the sign for a gambling house: ‘The Fighting Tiger.’]
1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 14. Last night and to-day they have
succeeded in placing under arrest six of the gaming-house keepers
of the city and subpœnaed thirty citizens as witnesses, among whom
are said to be prominent city officials and business men. The
affair has caused a good deal of talk already, and if reports are
anywhere near true, it will create a great sensation when the cases
are called, and more than one unsuspecting wife will have her eyes
opened to the fact that the wicked tiger, and not legitimate
business has been detaining her husband out so late at night.
Buck Bait, subs. (thieves’).—Bail given by a confederate. Cf., Bait.
Buck Down, verbal phr. (Winchester College).—To be sorry; unhappy. Cf.,
Buck up and Bucksome.
Bucked. To be bucked, verb (Uppingham).—To be tired. Cf., Buck up.
Buckeen, subs. (Irish).—A bully.—Grose. Properly a young man of the
poorer aristocracy.
Bucket, subs. (American).—An anonymous letter.
Verb (general).—1. To ride hard; not to spare one’s beast.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Coventry, ch. xi. ‘I had rather give
Brilliant a good bucketing’ [Aunt Horsingham shuddered—I knew she
would, and used the word on purpose] ‘over an even heath or a line
of grass, than go bodkin in a chariot.’
1864. Yates, Broken to Harness, II., p. 218. There’s room in the
Row to give him [the horse] a very good bucketing.
1868. Tottenham, C. Villars, I., 243. Bucketing his wretched horse
home to Cambridge. [M.]
1884. Hawley Smart, From Post to Finish, p. 342. ‘Ten thousand
pardons, Dollie, dearest; but I only got your message an hour or so
ago, and am so busy I couldn’t get here before. As it is I have had
to bucket my hack unmercifully.’