mercy buckets

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mercy buckets

Where it comes from

A jocular malapropism (or phono-semantic matching) of French merci beaucoup (“thanks a lot”); influenced by buckets of (“lots of”).

phrase merci buckets

humorous Thanks very much. 1929 "Franklin W. Dixon" (Penguin, →ISBN) Hardy Boys 7: The Secret of the Caves, Chapter 16, p.89: "Well, anyhow, thanks a lot, Mr. Dumont," he added. "Mercy buckets, as you French say."

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MLA

"mercy buckets." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/mercy%20buckets. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

mercy buckets. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/mercy%20buckets

Chicago

"mercy buckets." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/mercy%20buckets.

BibTeX

@misc{mercy_buckets_2026,
  title = {mercy buckets},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/mercy%20buckets},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}