buy the farm

Meaning

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

Synonyms

die

💀

perish

pass away

conk

expire

decease

snuff it

kick the bucket

check out

go

croak

drop dead

exit

pass

choke

pop off

cash in one’s chips

give-up the ghost

ring down the curtain

demise

pass on

bite the dust

cease to be

go to meet ones maker

join the choir invisible

peg out

succumb

wite

roll over

give up the ghost

take a dirt nap

meet one's maker

to cop it

to bite the dust

nibble off

underlie

vanish

Translations

casser sa pipe

den Löffel abgeben

💀

passer l’arme à gauche

sterben

💀

crever

πεθαίνω

morire

💀

abkratzen

verscheiden

💀

draufgehen

ins Gras beißen

heimgehen

versterben

💀

verrecken

das Zeitliche segnen

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.