bucket

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A cylindrical vessel used for holding or carrying liquids or solids; a pail.
• noun The amount that a bucket can hold.
• noun A unit of dry measure in the US Customary System equal to 2 pecks (17.6 liters).
• noun A receptacle on various machines, such as the scoop of a power shovel or the compartments on a water wheel, used to gather and convey material.
• noun Basketball A basket.
• intransitive verb To hold, carry, or put in a bucket.
• intransitive verb To ride (a horse) long and hard.
• intransitive verb To move or proceed rapidly and jerkily.
• intransitive verb To make haste; hustle.
• idiom (a drop in the bucket) An insufficient or inconsequential amount in comparison with what is required.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To dip up water with a bucket; use a bucket.
• [In allusion to the rapid motion of a bucket in a well.] To move fast.
• To pour water upon with a bucket.
• noun A letter full of abuse.
• noun A scoop or digger used for taking up loose material such as coal or ore, and often for digging under water.
• noun In turbines and centrifugal pumps, the space between two adjacent vanes on the revolving wheel.
• noun A vessel for drawing up water, as from a well; a pail or open vessel of wood, leather, metal, or other material, for carrying water or other liquid.
• noun A vane, float, or box on a water-wheel against which the water impinges, or into which it falls, in turning the wheel.
• noun The scoop of a dredging-machine, a grain-elevator, etc.
• noun The float of a paddle-wheel.
• noun The piston of a lifting-pump.
• noun As much as a bucket holds; half a bushel.
• noun A beam or pole on which anything may be hung or carried.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A vessel for drawing up water from a well, or for catching, holding, or carrying water, sap, or other liquids.
• noun A vessel (as a tub or scoop) for hoisting and conveying coal, ore, grain, etc.
• noun (Mach.) One of the receptacles on the rim of a water wheel into which the water rushes, causing the wheel to revolve; also, a float of a paddle wheel.
• noun The valved piston of a lifting pump.
• noun (Mach.) one of vanes on the rotor of a turbine.
• noun (Mach.) a bucketfull.
• noun a bucket for carrying water to put out fires.
• noun [Low] to die.
• transitive verb To draw or lift in, or as if in, buckets.
• transitive verb To pour over from a bucket; to drench.
• transitive verb To ride (a horse) hard or mercilessly.
• transitive verb (Rowing), engraving To make, or cause to make (the recovery), with a certain hurried or unskillful forward swing of the body.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A container made of rigid material, often with a handle, used to carry liquids or small items.
• noun The amount held in this container.
• noun Part of a piece of machinery that resembles a bucket.
• noun slang An old car that is not in good working order.
• noun basketball, informal The basket.
• noun basketball, informal A field goal.
• noun variation management A mechanism for avoiding the allocation of targets in cases of mismanagement.
• noun computing A storage space in a hash table for every item sharing a particular key.
• verb transitive To place inside a bucket.
• verb intransitive (informal) To rain heavily.
• verb intransitive (informal) To travel very quickly.
• verb computing, transitive To categorize (data) by splitting it into buckets, or groups of related items.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a roughly cylindrical vessel that is open at the top
• verb put into a bucket