Word.ws English Dictionary

break the buck

break the buck verb: to fall below the value of one dollar per share.

Verb

break the buck (third-person singular simple present breaks the buck, present participle breaking the buck, simple past broke the buck, past participle broken the buck)

  1. (US, idiomatic) To fall below the value of one dollar per share.
    • In 1994, during the Orange County bankruptcy, a few funds were poised to break the buck, until their parent companies stepped in.2000, Charles A. Jaffe, Chuck Jaffe’s Lifetime Guide to Mutual Funds: An Owner’s Manual, Perseus Books Group, →ISBN, page 110, →ISBN
    • "We were likely going to see more funds halt redemptions" and break the buck. The insurance program is part of a wider rescue package […]2008 September 19, “Money-Market Funds Get $50 Billion Backstop From US (Update1)”, in Bloomberg

Forms of break the buck

third-person singular presentbreaks the buck
present participlebreaking the buck
pastbroke the buck
past participlebroken the buck

Origin of break the buck

Break (as in break the bank) + the + buck (“dollar (colloquial)”).

Questions about break the buck

What does break the buck mean?
Break the buck means to fall below the value of one dollar per share.
What part of speech is break the buck?
Break the buck is a verb.
What is the past tense of break the buck?
The past tense of break the buck is broke the buck.

Words near break the buck in the dictionary

  1. break someone's heart
  2. break squelch
  3. break stride
  4. break the back of
  5. break the bank
  6. break the buck
  7. break the cycle
  8. break the deadlock
  9. break the fourth wall
  10. break the ice
  11. break the internet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break the buck (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-break the buck.ogg.

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