The Noun Bucket: The Figurative Sense Overlooked by Dictionaries

Abstract

The paper makes a strong case for treating figurative contexts of an English word as an important factor in the disambiguation of its polysemy and in the search for successful sense definitions. The noun bucket has been selected for a case study. A comparative study of the definition of bucket in Lexico online dictionary and in a number of selected contexts drawn from electronic databases clearly demonstrates the inconclusive information the dictionary provides about the meaning of this noun. The root cause of this is attributed to the insufficient attention the lexicographers have paid to the markers of the figurative use of bucket in context. The analysis of figurative contexts has made it possible to define a separate figurative sense of this word and also to account for the meaning and the expressive potential of the compound bucket list and the phrase kick the bucket traditionally considered a non-compositional idiom meaning die. The analysis of the figurative sense of bucket also reveals a strong positive evaluative charge at the very core of the meaning of this word. A hypothesis is proposed that further study of the evaluative potential of the nouns bucket, pail and can may clarify the differences in their meaning and help avoid cross-references in dictionary definitions. Defining the figurative sense of bucket adds a missing link to the systemic representation of its meaning in dictionaries and highlights its role in informing the expressive potential and meaning of bucket list and kick the bucket. Refs 15.