buck, adj.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

buck adj.¹

1. tough, virile, aggressive; for use as a term of racist abuse see sense 2.

1764		K. O’Hara Midas I v: The wenches have turn’d tail – to yon buck-ranter.
1794		Sporting Mag. Oct. V 46/1: A reprobate buck parson, going to read prayers at a remote village [etc.].
1801		M. Edgeworth Belinda (1994) 319: ‘What sort of man is he?’ ‘Not a buck parson.’.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 485: A stately ‘buck’ Kanaka would stalk in with a woman’s bonnet on, wrong side before – only this, and nothing more.
1903		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 July 1/1: The jumped-up joss received a Perth penwoman à la buck navvy.
1903		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Aug. 10/3: The landlord is a big buck Syrian.
1911		E. Dyson ‘An Amorous Boy’ Benno and Some of the Push 180: Youter be shot, a pair iv buck larrikins slingin’ off at a bit iv a kid.
1923		P. MacGill Moleskin Joe 15: The buck-navvy is a type of workman in whom are the qualities (or lack of them) of the hobo, vagrant and tramp. He is an outcast of society, [...] the rude uncultured labourer.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 50: A big buck Jock who would laugh at a bayonet has fainted at the prick of the needle.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Noah’s Ark’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 98: As though he were a tent from which ten buck-navvies were trying to escape.
2004		T.I. ‘24’s’ 🎵 I’m a buck mothafucka, I don’t know how to back down.

2. virile, aggressive, as used to describe a black man, with racist overtones; usu. as buck nigger

1822		Southern Patriot and Commercial Advertiser in Wade Slavery in the Cities (1964) 12 Sept. n.p.: I [...] slapt him on the shoulders, but, to my no small surprize (and equally so no doubt to the buck blacky) a sable Dandy stared me in the face.
1857		Perrysburg Jrnl (OH) 8 Oct. 4/1: ‘The Brethren of Negroes!’ Won’t some Buck African negro-hater faint when he smells those words.
1891		Punch 31 Jan. 54: Thet swaggerin’ black buck Nig., JOHN, / Is jest a grown-up kid.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Mar. 4/6: What constitutes a sufficiency of helpmates and olive branches for 10,000 (or 200,000) buck Chinkies is not specified.
c.1905		J. Furphy Buln-Buln and the Brolga (1948) 🌐 She sees a big buck blackfeller comin’ along solitary, with three or four spears.
1909		Sun. Times (Perth) 15 Aug. 4s/6: Joseph Sabion, a buck Malay.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 July 2nd sect. 12/6: Even the ‘Hawklet’ [...] would jib at publishing the squalid details of a vulgar intrigue between a buck Afghan and a degenerate white woman [...] Surely the surgical detail of villainous white-black amour should be kept out of print.
1912		J. London Smoke Bellew Pt 10 🌐 That geezer you was dickerin’ with is a big buck Indian. Am I right?
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 82: Marg saw her first Indian at Albuquerque — a big fat buck Navaho who was selling beads and trinkets.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 56: De Biggest Buck Stud on de Plantation.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 292: That lawyer’s wife and her buck boyfriend went to prison.

3. (US campus) excellent, first-rate.

1795		Sporting Mag. Sept. VI 315/2: Since the buck feast given by his grace the Duke of Bedford, the tradesmen of Covent Garden parish, who are at all times fond of good things [etc.].
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 56: buck. At Princeton College, anything which is in an intensive degree good, excellent, pleasant, or agreeable, is called buck.
1910		Sporting Times 8 Jan. 2/5: Now, dear, it only remains for me to wish you a real buck time in the New Year.
1945		J. Archibald ‘Smoke Scream’ in 10-Story Detective Feb. 🌐 So I says I will smoke this buck stinkweed [...] I take a light and start puffing away.

4. see buck-naked under buck n.¹

In compounds

buck nigger (n.) (also buck negro)

1. (US/Aus./N.Z.) a derog. term for a black person, a Native American or Aus. Aboriginal; derog. unless used by blacks (cf. buck n.¹ (6)).

1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Mar. 22 1/3: [The coat] had been used on the back of some buck Negro, who had tog’d after his master.
1841		Sun. Flash (NY) 12 Sept. n.p.: A huge buck negro has been seen late at night.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 3 Dec. n.p.: [T]o the astonishment of a buck nigger from Delaware.
1851		‘Voice from San Francisco’ in Sth Australian (Adelaide) 3 June 4/3: A big buck nigger (as the Yankees call him) got up for the occasion, in their peculiar roseate hue style, is the genius of complacency.
1853		J.G. Baldwin Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi 174: A big buck negro struck with all his might, with the back of an axe.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Aug. 3/2: A certain buck nigger who she alleged had warmed himself into the defendant’s affections.
1860		letter in Richmond (VA) Enquirer 30 Nov. 2/4: He let drop from the canvas an unmistakable small, nappy-headed buck negro.
1877		Northampton Mercury 28 July 7/5: You would not like your sister to get married to one, or like to have a big full-blooded ‘buck nigger’ as your room mate.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Nov. 2/1: The society belles of Denver have had the old fashion revived [...] of eloping with a buck nigger.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Apr. 10/1: The next time the Myalls required ‘dispersing’ Jock was as spry as a two-year-old, and, directly after the buck niggers had been dispersed from the camp, took a look round on what was to him a familiar sight. All the gins, instead of bolting with the black fellows, had merely stuck their heads into hollow logs or tufts of grass, like emus, trusting that their spectators would mistake the portion of their bodies exposed for charred stumps.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 15 Apr. 3/7: [headline] A Buck Nigger Butts a Policeman. The Constable Laid Out.
1895		Mirror of Life 218 Dec. 3/1: One day Bunkum made his appearance with a big buck nigger that he had picked up in the neighbourhood of the docks. He was of huge proportions, with features so grotesquely ugly as to be almost indescribable.
1898		A.J. Boyd Shellback 265: Ef I had him down south, I could paint him black and sell him for a buck nigger.
1899–1900		H. Lawson ‘The Golden Graveyard’ in Roderick (1972) 348: ‘Kullers’ was a big American buck nigger.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 July 2nd sect.9/1: They Say [...] That the stupendous yap about black boxer Johnson's classic attainments is gorgeous guff. That the huge buck nigger left ample evidence in Perth, as to his illiteracy.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 480: And to my joy, one night there was a great buck nigger who had a lot to say about ‘Africa for the Africans’.
1929		T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 502: Strapping black buck-niggers, with gorilla arms and the black paws of panthers.
1939		T. Wolfe Web and the Rock 240: He found to his horror and indignation that a ‘big buck nigger’ had come in and taken a seat opposite him.
1948		R. Park Harp in South 61: ‘I’d like to see your throat cut by a buck nigger, you old morepork’.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 285: Before you knew where you was, in come a great big buck nigger!
1964		J. Baldwin Blues for Mister Charlie 27: I don’t want no big buck nigger lying up next to Josephine.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 29: Some big old buck nigger prolly do it.
1983		I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 50: Also buck-nigger (1842).
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 204: ‘Big buck nigger, isn’t he?’ ‘He’s black, yes’.

2. (US black) used neutrally between black speakers.

1884

H.G. Carleton Thompson Street Poker Club 16: ‘Den along comes a buck niggah and den I lose a dollah’.

buck-sick (adj.)

(W.I.) tired of a boring, but still vital task.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

buck adj.1

In compounds

buck adj.¹