Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/364

 things for me in front of my girl by saying, "It's no disgrace, pardnr, that horse can buck off a porus plaster," I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.'

3. (commercial.)—A variant of to cook (q.v.), as applied to accounts.

4. (Western American.)—To play against the bank, usually 'to buck the tiger.'—See following.

1879. Bret Harte, Gabriel Conroy, p. 375. I don't like your looks at all. I'd buck against any bank you ran, all night.

1880. Bret Harte, Brown of Calaveras. (Tales of the Arg., p. 81). Why don't you say you want to buck agin' faro?

1888. Hotel Mail.

A man may hunt the wildest game Along the Nile or the Niger, In woods or ranch; But he will find the sport most tame Compared with bucking the tiger At dear Long Branch.

5. (Western American.)—To put forth one's whole energy. [An extension of meaning from sense 4.]

1870. San Antonio Paper. 'You'll have to buck at it like a whole team, gentlemen, or you won't hear the whistle near your diggings for many a year.'

To run a buck, verbal phr. (old Irish).—To poll a bad vote at an election.—Grose.

Buck or fight the tiger, verbal phr. (American).—To gamble. [There are two derivations suggested:—(1) that the phrase is derived from the parti-coloured division or stripes on a gambling table; (2) that it is of Chinese origin. A favourite figure of one of the Chinese gods of gambling is a tiger standing on his hind-feet, and grasping a large cash in his mouth or his paws. Sometimes the image is made of wood or clay, or drawn on a piece of paper or board. The title of the beast, His Excellency the Grasping Cash Tiger, is frequently written on a piece of paper, and placed in the gambling rooms between two bunches of mock-money suspended under the table or on the wall behind it. This figure is the sign for a gambling house: 'The Fighting Tiger.'

1888. Daily Inter-Ocean, Feb. 14. Last night and to-day they have succeeded in placing under arrest six of the gaming-house keepers of the city and subpœnaed thirty citizens as witnesses, among whom are said to be prominent city officials and business men. The affair has caused a good deal of talk already, and if reports are anywhere near true, it will create a great sensation when the cases are called, and more than one unsuspecting wife will have her eyes opened to the fact that the wicked tiger, and not legitimate business has been detaining her husband out so late at night.

Buck Bait, subs. (thieves').—Bail given by a confederate. Cf., Bait.

Buck Down, verbal phr. (Winchester College).—To be sorry; unhappy. Cf., Buck up and Bucksome.

Bucked. To be bucked, verb (Uppingham).—To be tired. Cf., Buck up.

Buckeen, subs. (Irish).—A bully.—Grose. Properly a young man of the poorer aristocracy.

Bucket, subs. (American).—An anonymous letter.

Verb (general).—1. To ride hard; not to spare one's beast.