passing the buck

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an idiom describing the act of shifting responsibility for a decision, problem, or difficult task onto another person or organisation in order to avoid accountability, blame, or the burden of action; the phrase originates in poker, where a marker — a buck — was placed in front of the player whose turn it was to deal, and passing the buck meant transferring this duty to the next player; President Truman famously placed a sign on his Oval Office desk reading The buck stops here, signifying that he accepted final responsibility for decisions that others might deflect; in public administration passing the buck is associated with diffusion of responsibility across bureaucratic levels and between government agencies, with complex federal and multilevel governance systems creating multiple opportunities for each level to defer difficult decisions to another; accountability reforms often focus on creating clear responsibility so that the buck cannot be passed

Examples

• Each ministry blamed the other for the policy failure, passing the buck until the prime minister intervened.
• The sign on President Truman's desk — 'The buck stops here' — became a symbol of executive accountability in contrast to bureaucratic buck-passing.