A buck is a male deer, especially in species like deer or antelope. In North American English, “buck” is also a casual word for a dollar.
From Old English “bucca,” meaning “male goat,” later extended to male deer. The money meaning may come from trading deer or animal skins, called “buckskins,” as a form of payment.
The leap from deer to dollars likely passed through animal skins used as money—your “buck” once had fur. When people say “the buck stops here,” they’re mixing this money sense with responsibility and blame.
“Buck” is used for a male deer and as slang for a man, sometimes with racialized and sexualized overtones, especially in historical references to Black men in English. It has been used to stereotype masculinity as aggressive or hypersexual.
Avoid using “buck” as a generic term for a man or in racialized ways. Reserve it for literal animal references or neutral financial senses (“buck” for a dollar) where context is clear.
["man","person","dollar"]
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