Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

buy the farm

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.65 in modern English

Syllables: buy the -farm
IPA

23

Scrabble Score

10

Letters

2

Syllables

10

Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

To die; generally, to die in battle or in a plane crash.

American usage; Informal

Example Sentences

"You're just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" as if you buy it in a declared war."
"Then tracers laced the sky in front of me. Forget the shooting! If I get distracted now, I'll buy the farm anyway!"
"BETTY. Shoot, if I knew you was gonna buy the farm I coulda asked for everything you got in the world... How were you gonna do it? ¶ROGER (takes revolver out of briefcase). With this."
"They gambled with as much reckless abandon as they flew their airplanes. They knew they might buy the farm tomorrow."

Etymology

Not known with certainty. Two long-held hypotheses are as follows: One describes combat soldiers wistfully wishing to go back home, buy a farm, and live peacefully there; later, after they had been killed in combat, their fellow soldiers would say that they had bought the farm (compare the established metaphor pattern of having gone to that big [whatever sort of nice place] in the sky). Another links the phrase to the idea that governments compensate farmers whose land is damaged by a military aircraft crash; a deceased pilot was thus said to have bought the farm, and the term eventually entered wider use. Still another links it to a sardonic attitude of farmers that farms are often so heavily mortgaged and farmers' finances so difficult that one could not finish buying one's farm until one was dead.

Usage

American usage
Informal

Inflected Forms

buys the farm (present, singular) buying the farm (participle, present) bought the farm (participle, past) bought the farm (past)

Phrases

bet the farm

Frequently Paired Words

bet the farm

Synonyms

buy it buy the plot buy the ranch buy the big one kick the bucket punch one's ticket meet your maker die decease perish go exit

Questions

What does buy the farm mean?: To die; generally, to die in battle or in a plane crash.
Where does buy the farm come from?: Not known with certainty. Two long-held hypotheses are as follows: One describes combat soldiers wistfully wishing to go back home, buy a farm, and live peacefully there; later, after they had been killed in combat, their fellow soldiers would say that they had bought the farm (compare the established metaphor pattern of having gone to that big [whatever sort of nice place] in the sky). Another links the phrase to the idea that governments compensate farmers whose land is damaged by a military aircraft crash; a deceased pilot was thus said to have bought the farm, and the term eventually entered wider use. Still another links it to a sardonic attitude of farmers that farms are often so heavily mortgaged and farmers' finances so difficult that one could not finish buying one's farm until one was dead.

How to pronounce buy the farm

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