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From birth to death, the word "kick" has been given an important part in expressing human experience. The proud and happy mother feels the first signs of life kicking inside her womb. And that same life, many years later, comes to its end, in a widely used expression, to kick the bucket, meaning to die. The expression "kick the bucket" is almost two hundred years old. One belief is that it started when an English stableman committed suicide by hanging him-self while standing on a pail or a bucket. He put a rope around his neck and tied it to a beam under the ceiling, and then kicked the bucket away from under him. After a while, to die in any way was called kicking the bucket.

Another old expression that comes from England is to kick over the traces, meaning to resist the commands of one’s parents or to op-pose or reject authority. Traces were the chains that held a horse or mule to a wagon or a plow. Sometimes an animal rebelled and kicked over the traces.

"Kick around" is a phrase that is heard often in American English. A person who is kicked around is someone who is treated badly. Usually he is not really being kicked by somebody’s foot. He is just not being treated with the respect that all of us want. A person who has kicked around for most of his life is some-one who has spent his life moving from place to place. In this case, "kick around" means "move often from one place to another". "Kick around" has a third meaning when you use it with the word "idea". When you kick around an idea you are giving that idea some thought.

There is no physical action when you kick a person upstairs although the pain can be as strong. You kick a person upstairs by removing him from an important job and giving him a job that sounds more important but really is not.

Still, another meaning of the word "kick" is to free oneself of a bad habit, such as smoking cigarettes. Health campaigns urge smokers to kick the habit.

短语串记

1. kick the bucket 死，翘辫子，蹬腿儿

有说法认为kick the bucket起源于“上吊”，因为试图悬梁自尽的人通常会选择站在一个木桶之类的东西上，将脖子伸进绳圈里，然后决然踢翻脚下的支撑物，告别这个世界。要注意的是，kick the bucket一般不用于有礼貌的谈话中。

2. kick over the traces （开始）不听话，不守规矩，不受管束

大家肯定在电视上见过马儿挣脱缰绳，四处奔跑的场面，kick over the traces出现之初就是这意思。后被引申为to free oneself from control; unexpectedly start to act wildly，即“摆脱控制，摆脱约束，不听指挥”，往往带有积极的含义。

3. kick around
kick around 有三种意思：

（1）粗暴地对待，虐待，凌辱。eg: John likes to kick around the little boys. 约翰经常欺负小孩。

（2）（无目的地）四处游荡，到处走。

（3）从各个角度考虑（调查、讨论）4. kick sb upstairs

只听说过能踢人下楼，还没听说过能把人踢到楼上，这是怎么回事呢？英国议会昔日有这么一个风俗：当某位议员成为令人生厌的人物时，他即被赐予贵族爵位，并从下议院议员晋升为上议院议员。其实成为上议院议员，明为提升，实为暗降，因为英国议会权力向来集中于下议院。这种习惯性做法被人们戏称为kick sb upstairs，其喻义是“将某人明升暗降；以升迁为名排斥某人”。那kick downstairs可真就是“被踢下楼，降职”了，可不是笑谈了啊！

5. kick the habit 这个习语意为“戒除嗜好”，通常是坏习惯。

《经济学家》2007年9月号就有一篇文章以“Can’t kick the habit”为标题，谈论亚洲国家烟草屡禁不止的原因。eg: The doctor advised that heart disease patient, a heavy smoker, to kick the habit. 那个心脏病患者烟抽得十分凶，医生劝他戒掉这个嗜好。