noun
buck
BUK/bʌk/
A male animal, especially a deer.
A white-tailed buck stands alert beneath his branching antlers.
Etymology
Old English bucca named a male goat. The animal changed as the word came to mean a male deer and males of other species, but the distinction of sex remained.
In context
once three deer a buck and two Doe's stopped in front of him and stared for a moment then bounded away in a flutter of white tails
More examples
- The buck vanished into the trees when it heard us.
- A young buck challenged the older males in the herd.
- The novel calls its swaggering young man a handsome buck.
Forms
buck · bucks
Similar words
- stag
- Specifically a male deer, while buck also names males of several other animals.