Where Did the Word “Buck” Come From For a Dollar and How Did the Term Originate?

The Indians taught the first European settlers the value of a buck.

Like gold, deer or buckskin was used in trading as a unit of value against which everything else was assessed.

That’s how a dollar was called a “buck”.

The phrase, “The buck stops here” is a different story altogether.

That expression came from frontier poker, in which the buck was a knife made of buckhorn that was passed around the table to indicate who was dealing.

When a hand was finished, the dealer “passed the buck” to the next player.