| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| buck4 |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  b k |
| NOUN: | Games 1. A counter or marker formerly passed from one poker player to another to indicate an obligation, especially one's turn to deal. 2. Informal Obligation to account for something; responsibility: tried to pass the buck for the failure to his boss. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: bucked, buck·ing, bucks
Informal To pass (a task or duty) to another, especially so as to avoid responsibility: “We will see the stifling of initiative and the increased bucking of decisions to the top” (Winston Lord, Foreign Affairs Fall 1989). | | IDIOM: | the buck stops here Informal The ultimate responsibility rests here. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Short for buckhorn knife (from its use as a marker in poker).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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