buck
buck
/bʌk/
1 countable (informal) a US, Australian or New Zealand dollar; a South African rand; an Indian rupee They cost ten bucks.
We're talking big bucks (= a lot of money) here.
2 countable a male deer, hare or rabbit (also called a buck rabbit) COMPARE doe, hart, stag
TOPICS AnimalsC2
3 countable (plural buck) (South African English) a deer, whether male or female a herd of buck
5 the buck singular used in some expressions to refer to the responsibility or blame for something It was my decision. The buck stops here (= nobody else can be blamed).
I was tempted to pass the buck (= make somebody else responsible).
Idioms
Word Origin
noun sense 1 mid 19th cent.: of unknown origin. noun senses 2 to 4 Old English, partly from buc ‘male deer’ (of Germanic origin, related to Dutch bok and German Bock); reinforced by bucca ‘male goat’, of the same ultimate origin. noun sense 5 from buck, an object which in a poker game is placed in front of the player whose turn it is to deal.
e.g.