- Meaning
- This idiom describes shifting responsibility, blame, or a difficult task to someone else, avoiding accountability, as if passing a ‘buck’ or marker in a game to another player. It conveys evasion or delegation of duty, often used in professional, political, or social contexts to critique shirking or highlight bureaucratic inefficiency. The phrase carries a tone of disapproval, irony, or frustration, reflecting cultural expectations of responsibility and the human tendency to dodge tough obligations. It resonates in hierarchical or collaborative settings where accountability is critical, capturing the irritation of deflected duties, and its gaming imagery adds a layer of historical intrigue, evoking a poker table’s stakes. The idiom often implies a chain of avoidance, making it a sharp metaphor for the blame game or organizational inertia.
- Origin
- The phrase originated in mid-19th-century America, rooted in poker, where a ‘buck’ (often a knife with a buckhorn handle) was a marker passed to designate the dealer, symbolizing responsibility. Its metaphorical use emerged in the 1860s, with an early appearance in an 1865 *San Francisco Chronicle* article, describing a politician ‘passing the buck’ on a tough issue. The idiom gained traction in the late 19th century, reflecting America’s frontier gambling culture, as seen in Mark Twain’s *Roughing It* (1872), which uses poker metaphors. Its use was amplified in the early 20th century, particularly during World War I, when military bureaucracy popularized it, as noted in soldier slang. The phrase’s adoption in British and Commonwealth English came through American media and military influence, notably post-1940s, and its spread was fueled by its vivid imagery, evoking a game’s shifting marker, and its applicability to evasion, ensuring its enduring use across English-speaking cultures, from corporate offices to political scandals. Its fame was cemented by President Harry Truman’s desk sign, ‘The Buck Stops Here,’ in the 1940s, contrasting the idiom’s avoidance.
- Variants
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- Pass the buck
- Passing the buck
- Shift the buck
- Hand off the buck
- Examples
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- Don’t pass the buck—own up to the mistake and fix it.
- Passing the buck, the manager blamed the team for the delay.
- Shift the buck, she did, redirecting the complaint to another department.
- Hand off the buck, and you’ll lose credibility with the client.
- They passed the buck, leaving the intern to handle the crisis.
- Passing the buck, he dodged the tough decision by delegating it.
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