kick [LME] Although it is such a common word, nobody seems to know the origin of kick, though Old Norse kikna ‘bend backwards, sink at the knees’ has been suggested. If you kick against the pricks [LME] the image is that of an ox fruitlessly kicking out at a whip or goad. The expression comes from the Bible story of Saul of Tarsus. He was an opponent of the followers of Jesus, and was going to Damascus to arrest any Christians in the city. On his journey he had a vision and heard the question, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ When he asked who the speaker was he was told, ‘I am Jesus who thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.’ After seeing the vision Saul became a Christian convert, under the new name Paul. If you kick over the traces [M19th] the ‘traces’ in this expression are the two side straps which attach a draught horse to the vehicle it is pulling. If the animal is uncooperative or skittish and kicks out over these straps, the driver has difficulty in trying to regain control. To kick the bucket meaning ‘to die’ has been in use since the late 18th century, although its exact origins are not clear. One gruesome suggestion is that a person who wanted to commit suicide by hanging themselves might stand on a bucket while putting the noose round their neck and then kick the bucket away. Another idea looks back to an old sense of ‘bucket’ meaning ‘a beam used for hanging something on’. This meaning was also found in Norfolk dialect, in which it referred specifically to a beam from which a pig about to be slaughtered was suspended by its heels.