buck-basket

English

Noun

buck-basket (plural buck-baskets)

1. (obsolete) A basket in which clothes are carried to the wash.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

     Falstaff. […] they conveyed me into a buck-basket.
     Ford. A buck-basket!
     Falstaff. By the Lord, a buck-basket! rammed me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins […]

   • 1691, Thomas d’Urfey, Love for Money, or, The Boarding School‎^[1], London: J. Hindmarsh, act II, scene 2, page 21:

     Iane, let the Buck-basket be got ready for the foul-cloaths, de’e hear, and bid the Landress take care to mend all the shifts; these great Ramping-girles do so tear their Linnen, it almost makes me wilde.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “buck-basket”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)