Word.ws English Dictionary

the buck stops here

the buck stops here phrase: a statement that no excuses will be made, that the speaker is going to take direct responsibility for matters, rather than pass the responsibility to higher authorities.

Phrase

the buck stops here

  1. (idiomatic) A statement that no excuses will be made, that the speaker is going to take direct responsibility for matters, rather than pass the responsibility to higher authorities.
    • Well, nobody else can make a decision but me because I was the President and the final decision comes to the President, you know. I used to have a sign on my desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here." The buck stops at the president's desk when he's president of the United States, and he either makes...1965, Harry S. Truman, 0:20 from the start, in MP2002-401 Former President Truman Discusses "The Buck Stops Here", Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162
    • If you will stick with this plan, we will post three consecutive years of declining deficits for the first time since Harry Truman lived in the White House. And once again, the buck stops here.1994 January 25, William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address, 2004 Gutenberg eBook

Origin of the buck stops here

Popularized by US President Harry Truman. The phrase is based on the metaphorical expression passing the buck, derived from poker gameplay, that came to mean "passing blame", or absolving oneself of responsibility or concern by denying authority or jurisdiction over a given matter.

Questions about the buck stops here

What does the buck stops here mean?
The buck stops here means a statement that no excuses will be made, that the speaker is going to take direct responsibility for matters, rather than pass the responsibility to higher authorities.
What part of speech is the buck stops here?
The buck stops here is a phrase.

Words near the buck stops here in the dictionary

  1. the breath of life
  2. the bride at every wedding
  3. the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral
  4. the British are coming
  5. The Brothers
  6. the buck stops here
  7. the burnt child dreads the fire
  8. the burnt child fears the fire
  9. the cake is a lie
  10. the call is coming from inside the house
  11. The Call of South Africa

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the buck stops here (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-the buck stops here.ogg, En-us-the buck stops here.oga.

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