Green’s Dictionary of Slang

kick the bucket v.

to die.

1775		Gentleman’s Mthly Intelligencer Aug. 409/1: My old mess-mate, Tom Bowline, met me at the gangway, and with a salute as hearty as honest, damn’d his eyes, but he was glad I had not kicked the bucket.
c.1780		‘The Bucket of Water’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 47: At the gallows you’ll sure kick the bucket at last.
1798		Sporting Mag. Jan. XI 134/1: I drew my knife and his bosom stuck it; / He fell, you clapped – and then he kicked the bucket!
1812		G. Colman Yngr ‘The Lady of the Wreck’ Poetical Vagaries 52: ‘If the Bucket come not down,’ / ‘Soon shall I be doom’d to kick it.’.
1821–6		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 278: Old Jectionbag told me he thought you’d have kicked the bucket.
1832		Launceston Advertiser (Tas.) 21 Aug. 272/3: ‘In plain English, then,— the parson being about to kick the bucket—’ ‘Kick the —’ ‘Ay,— hop the twig,— or pop off the hooks :— pick-and-choose, I've a variety’.
1837		‘Nights At Sea’ Bentley’s Misc. May 482: They whitens her face, to make her look pale, as if she was nigh-hand kicking the bucket.
1842		Boston Satirist (MA) 21 Oct. n.p.: ‘No my tulip, let us rather / Hand in hand the bucket kick’.
1843		W.L. Rede Our Village I ii: The poor old stupe – that is – kicked the bucket.
1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 18 May n.p.: ‘Ah miscreant [...] prepare to kick the bucket!’’.
1851		‘Tall Young Oysterman’ Jolly Comic Songster 206: Then he popp’d into the waves, kick’d the bucket, and died.
1852		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 21 Mar. 3/3: Ther Club Ouse poodle haz ad a fit, and sitch a spinnin in hiz ed az made im like to kik ther buket.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 51/2: He lays down and kicks the bucket, and represents he’s dead.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 16: He’s got a touch of the yellow Jack, and don’t know the main-boom from the jib-boom, or a doctor from a horse-marine. He will probably kick the bucket.
1880		Besant & Rice Seamy Side II 258: Leaving his coat behind him too [...] to prove that his goose was already cooked, and his bucket kicked.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 9 Sept. 2/1: When a young woman loves to the suicide point, it is best she should kick the bucket before the virtuous spasm ends.
1887		Tuapeka Times (Otago) 24 Sept. 6/2: Did he kick the bucket.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 8 Feb. 4/2: Proverbs [...] The pitcher may go once too often to the well but a fool can kick the bucket.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘The Pick-me-up’ Dagonet Ditties 9: Which, when life begans to flicker, / And your soul grows slowly sicker, / And you feel a bucket-kicker, / Is a patent pick-me-up.
1895		J. London ‘And ’Frisco Kid Came Back’ in High School Aegis X 4 Nov. 2–4: De ole man [...] swilled like ’r fish till he kicked de pig.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 55: [Ch. heading] The starting of the Pelican Club — [...] — The financier kicks the bucket.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 12 Apr. 4/8: And as the wife was ‘pail,’ / We presume she kicked the bucket.
1908		Magnet 13 June 10: Oh, rats! You’re not going to kick the bucket yet.
1911		Collins et al. [perf. Harry Champion] ‘Any Old Iron’ 🎵 Oh just a couple o’ weeks ago me poor old Uncle Bill went and kicked the bucket.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 25: She’ll come out to ’er daddy soon as ever th’ol’ woman kicks the bucket.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 109: Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the bucket.
1930		E. Waugh Vile Bodies 128: As soon as the governor kicks the bucket.
1933		N. Lindsay Saturdee 31: Kickin’ buckets means a bloke pegged out.
1938		J.E. O’Donnell ‘Overcoat Bennie’ in Mss. from the Federal Writers’ Project 🌐 Sam ‘kicked the bucket’ in San Quentin Prison. And St. Louis Jimmy? He was shot to death in the latter part of January 1901, while trying to dynamite his way out of the Tennessee State Prison.
1941		in W.C. Fields By Himself (1974) 466: Our dear friend Troubles booted the bucket many years since.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 41: Some poor cat who had [TB] so bad he kicked the bucket a few days later.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 284: All I hope is that bartender don’t clunk the bucket.
1955		Mad mag. July 35: A great financier was made to forcibly kick the bucket with a one-way ticket from this Vale of Tears.
1958		F. Norman in Vogue Oct. in Norman’s London (1969) 37: I heard some geezer ask if she had kicked the tin.
1963		G. Lambert Inside Daisy Clover (1966) 22: I know of course the Ace of Spades means you’re going to kick the bucket.
[1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 361: You sure he’s footed the old garbage-can proper?].
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 54: BASTARD’S GRANDAD KICKS THE BUCKET.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 85: When a junky is getting ready to kick the bucket for want of a fix he is too weak to walk.
1983		V. Bloom ‘Letter From Home’ in Touch Mi, Tell Mi 50: Cass, mi dear, no badda cry, / Miss Claris kick de buckit.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 51: Three years after my mother died, an aunt I never knew I had kicked the bucket.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 64: The older you get the more people around you kick the bucket.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] Dick kicked the bucket and Charles sold the business to these Pommy bastards.
2014		T.M. Simmler ‘Suicide Chump’ in ThugLit July [ebook] Truth is, if it weren't for me, Geoff would've kicked the bucket three months ago.
2015		N. Cummins Tales of the Honey Badger [ebook] The lion hobbled off and kicked the bucket.