Bucket

A bucket is typically a watertight, vertical

A bucket is usually an open-top container. In contrast, a pail can have a top or lid and is a shipping container. In common usage, the two terms are often used interchangeably.

Types and uses

A number of bucket types exist, used for a variety of purposes. Though most of these are functional purposes, a number, including those constructed from precious metals, are used for ceremonial purposes. Common types of bucket and their adjoining purposes include:

• Water buckets used to carry water
• Household and garden buckets used for carrying liquids and granular products
• Elaborate ceremonial or ritual buckets constructed of
  situla
• Large scoops or buckets attached to
  telehandlers
  for landscaping agricultural and purposes
• Crusher buckets attached to excavators used for crushing and recycling material in the construction industry
• Buckets shaped like castles often used as children's toys to shape and carry sand on a beach or in a sandpit
• Buckets in special shapes such as cast iron buckets or smelting buckets to hold liquid metal at high temperatures

Though not always bucket shaped,

When in reference to a shipping container, the term "pail" is used as a technical term, specifically referring to a bucket shaped package with a sealed top or lid, which is then used as a transport container for chemicals and industrial products.^[4]

Gallery

• 
  Roman bronze situla from Germany, 2nd–3rd century
• 
  A wooden bucket
• 
  German 19th century leather firebuckets; the most common material used for buckets, alongside wood, before the invention of many modern materials was leather
• 
  A man carrying two buckets
• 
  A young lady carrying a bucket, drawing by German artist Heinrich Zille
• 
  A

  wringer
• 
  An

  excavator bucket
• 
  A crusher bucket
• 
  A helicopter bucket
• 
  A plastic yellow bucket
• 
  A metal bucket

English language phrases and idioms

The bucket has been used in many phrases and idioms in the English language,^[5] some of which are regional or specific to the use of English in different English-speaking countries.

• Kick the bucket: an informal term referring to someone's death
• Drop the bucket on: to implicate a person in something (from Australian slang)
• A drop in the bucket: a small, inadequate amount in relation to how much is requested or asked, taken from the biblical Book of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 15^{[citation needed]}
• Bucket list: a list of activities an individual wishes to undertake before death

Unit of measurement

As an obsolete unit of measurement, at least one source documents a 'bucket' as being equivalent to 4 imperial gallons (18 L; 4.8 US gal).^[6]

See also

• Bobrinski Bucket
• Coal scuttle
• Mop
• Pail (container)
• There's a Hole in My Bucket
• Veronica Bucket

References

External links

Look up bucket in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Buckets.

• "Five-gallon farm collectibles" by Jennifer M. Latzke
• "Uses for Five Gallon Buckets
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission warning
• "Utilizing a bucket for self-defense" on
  YouTube