"pail or open vessel for drawing and carrying water and other liquids," mid-13c., from Anglo-French buquet "bucket, pail," from Old French buquet "bucket," which is from Frankish or some other Germanic source, or a diminutive of cognate Old English buc "pitcher, bulging vessel," originally "belly" (buckets were formerly of leather as well as wood), both from West Germanic *buh- (source also of Dutch buik, Old High German buh, German Bauch "belly"), possibly from a variant of PIE root *beu-, *bheu- "to grow, swell" (see bull (n.2)).

To kick the bucket "die" (1785) perhaps is from an unrelated bucket "beam on which something may be hung or carried" (1570s), from French buquet "balance," a beam from which slaughtered animals were hung (by the heels or hooves). This was perhaps reinforced by the notion of suicide by hanging after standing on an upturned bucket; but Farmer calls attention to bucket "a Norfolk term for a pulley." Bucket list "list of experiences or achievements one hopes to have or accomplish during one's remaining life," is by 2007, probably based on kicking the bucket as "dying," but the phrase was used earlier in algorithm sorting.

1839, "plank mounted on four wheels," from board (n.1) + buck "body of a cart or wagon" (1690s), perhaps representing a dialectal survival of Old English buc "belly, body, trunk" (see bucket). As a type of vehicle constructed this way, from 1860.

late 14c., "to strike out with the foot," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old Norse kikna "bend backwards, sink at the knees." "The doubts OED has about the Scandinavian origin of kick are probably unfounded" [Liberman]. Older sources guessed it to be from Celtic. Earliest in the biblical phrase that is now usually rendered as kick against the pricks. Related: Kicked; kicking.

Transitive sense "give a blow with the foot" is from 1580s. Meaning "to strike in recoiling" (as a gun, etc.) is from 1832. Figurative sense of "complain, protest, manifest strong objection, rebel against" (late 14c.) probably is at least in part from the Bible verse. Slang sense of "die" is attested from 1725 (kick the wind was slang for "be hanged," 1590s; see also bucket). Meaning "to end one's drug habit" is from 1936.

Kick in "to break (something) down" is from 1876, sense of "contribute" is from 1908, American English; kick out "expel" is from 1690s. To kick around (intransitive) "wander about" is from 1839; transitive sense of "treat contemptuously" is from 1871 on the notion of "kick in all directions." To be kicked upstairs "removed from action by ostensible promotion" is from 1750. To kick oneself in self-reproach is from 1891. The children's game of kick the can is attested from 1891.

c. 1400, skellet, "pan used for boiling or frying," a word of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old French esculette "a little dish" (Modern French écuelle), diminutive of escuele "plate," from Latin scutella "serving platter" (see scuttle (n.)); or formed in English from skele "wooden bucket or pail" (early 14c.), from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse skjola "pail, bucket."

c. 1500, "the shell of a clam;" see clam (n.) + shell (n.). As "hinged iron box or bucket used in dredging" from 1877.

"excavating equipment consisting of a digging bucket on the end of an articulated arm, typically mounted on the back of a tractor," by 1928, from back (n. or adj.) + hoe (n.).