a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
something bought or to be bought; purchase: That coat was a sensible buy.
12.
a bargain: The couch was a real buy.
Verb phrases
13.
buy down, to lower or reduce (the mortgage interest rate) by means of a buy-down.
14.
buy in,
a.
to buy a supply of; accumulate a stock of.
b.
to buy back one's own possession at an auction.
c.
to undertake a buy-in.
Also, buy into.
15.
buy into, to purchase a share, interest, or membership in: They tried to buy into the club but were not accepted.
16.
buy off, to get rid of (a claim, opposition, etc.) by payment; purchase the noninterference of; bribe: The corrupt official bought off those who might expose him.
17.
buy out, to secure all of (an owner or partner's) share or interest in an enterprise: She bought out an established pharmacist and is doing very well.
buy it, Slang. to get killed: He bought it at Dunkirk.
Origin: before 1000; Middle English byen, variant of byggen, buggen,Old English bycgan; cognate with Old Saxon buggjan,Gothic bugjan to buy, Old Norse byggja to lend, rent
Related forms
buy·a·ble, adjective
non·buy·ing, adjective, noun
pre·buy, verb (used with object), pre·bought, pre·buy·ing.
Can be confused:buy, by, bye (see synonym note at the current entry).
Synonyms 1.Buy,purchase imply obtaining or acquiring property or goods for a price. Buy is the common and informal word, applying to any such transaction: to buy a house, vegetables at the market. Purchase is more formal and may connote buying on a larger scale, in a finer store, and the like: to purchase a year's supplies.
O.E. bycgan (pt. bohte) from P.Gmc. *bugjanan (cf. O.S. buggjan, Goth. bugjan), of unknown origin, not found outside Gmc. The surviving spelling is southwest England dialect; the word was generally pronounced in O.E. and M.E. with a -dg- sound as "budge," or "bidge." Meaning "believe, accept as true"
tv. to believe something. : It sounds good to me, but will your wife buy it?
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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buy it definition
tv. to die. (See also buy the farm; buy the big one.) : He lay there coughing for a few minutes, and then he bought it.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases
buy it
Suffer a severe reversal, as in If they can't raise the money in time, they'll buy it. [Slang; mid-1900s]
Be killed; die. For example, By the time we could get to the hospital, he had bought it. Originating during World War I as military slang, this term later was extended to peacetime forms of death. A later slang equivalent is buy the farm, dating from about 1950. For example, He'll soon buy the farm riding that motorcycle. According to J.E. Lighter, it alludes to training flights crashing in a farmer's field, causing the farmer to sue the government for damages sufficient to pay off the farm's mortgage. Since the pilot usually died in such a crash, he in effect bought the farm with his life.