In the card game Poker the buck or button is a marker used to indicate the player who is the dealer or, in casino games with a house dealer, the player who acts last on that deal (who would be the dealer in a home game). This article is about the card game. ...

When Poker became a popular saloon game in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century the integrity of the players was unreliable and the honor codes that had regulated gambling for centuries became inadequate. Because the dealer has the greatest opportunity to cheat (by manipulating the specific cards that players receive and by seeing the faces of the dealt cards) the players took turns in this role. To avoid arguments about whose turn it was to deal, the person who was next due to deal would be given a marker. A knife was a common object used as such a marker, and the marker became generally known as a buck as an abbreviated reference to the buck's horn that formed the handle of many knives at that time. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... It has been suggested that knifemaking be merged into this article or section. ... Subfamilies Capreolinae Cervinae Hydropotinae Muntiacinae A deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. ...

When the dealer had finished dealing the cards he 'passes the buck'. According to Martin, the earliest use of the phrase in print is in the July 1865 edition of Weekly New Mexican: "They draw at the commissary, and at poker after they have passed the buck.". The phrase then appears frequently in many sources so it probably originated at about this time.

The use of other small disks as such markers led to the alternative term "button". Silver dollars were later used as markers and it has been suggested that this is the origin of "buck" as a slang term for "dollar," though by no means is there universal agreement on this subject. This page is about the dollar currency. ... Slang is the non-standard or non-dialectal use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ...

US president Harry S. Truman's use of the slogan "the buck stops here" in speeches, and on a sign on his desk, derives from the adoption of the phrase "passing the buck" as a metaphor for avoiding responsibility. Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-fourth Vice President (1945) and the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–1953), succeeding to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. ... In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ...

See also

Poker jargon The large and growing jargon of poker includes many terms. ...

References

Martin, Garry. 'Pass the buck', The Phrase Finder Retrieved May 13, 2005 May 13 is the 133rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (134th in leap years). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...