Buck

Barbara asked about the origin of buck tooth, and also pointed out that buck is a versatile word. That it is.

Buck tooth comes from buck, once upon a time either a male deer or a he-goat. Someone evidently saw a resemblance between the large projecting tooth found in these animals and in some humans.

Aside from the animal, there are at least a dozen more instances of the noun buck in the Oxford English Dictionary.

• a dandy or fop
• a short vaulting-horse in a gym
• a shortened version of buckwheat
• a vat in which to steep clothes in lye
• a large basket used to catch eels
• the carcass of an animal
• the body of a cart; it had a buckboard
• a T-shaped end to a plough beam used to steer the draft animals
• a framework for resting pieces of wood while they are being cut
• a dollar (possibly from the fact that deerskin was once a trading item)
• an inanimate object signifying the identity of the current dealer in a poker game (possibly from the fact that the object was often a knife with a deer-horn handle); hence the terms to pass the buck or the buck stops here.
• boastful talk

• Buckaroo has nothing to do with deer; it is a corruption of vaquero (herdsman or cattle-driver).
• The Buckeyes were named after the horse-chestnut tree, evidently common in Ohio, and the tree was named after the supposed resemblance of its seed pod to a stag’s eye.
• Sawbuck became the slang term for a $10 bill because the ends of a buck (the framework for cutting wood) were X-shaped, and X was the Roman numeral for 10.
• Buckle isn’t connected at all. It comes from the Latin bucca (cheek). The original buckle was found on the cheek strap of a helmet.

Available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition

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