the Buck Stops Here

Variants

Meaning

• The responsibility for a situation or a problem with somebody.
• The saying "The buck stops here" is a commitment that responsibility will not be passed on to anyone else.
• It is used to show that a person is fully responsible for a certain action and will be fully answerable to the outcomes without passing down the responsibilities to a different person.
• Used to express one's willingness to entirely face the consequences of a particular decision or outcome.

Example Sentences

1. One does not need to blame anybody else for corruption in the republic of India; the buck stops with the leaders of the government of the world's biggest democratic nation.
2. My sister was reluctant to lend me her new Porsche. But she did when I promised that the buck ends with me.
3. When you are in a position of power, the buck stops with you.
4. We cannot keep on blaming the police department for the risen crime rates; the buck stops with me as a citizen.
5. Given the hospital policy, they couldn't operate on my friend without his consent or that of his immediate family members. Not even after I suggested that the buck stops here.
6. President Truman famously proclaimed, "The buck stops here," an explicit declaration that he would take ultimate responsibility for tough decisions.

Origin

The idiom "the buck stops here" was derived from a slang saying " pass the buck ", which is passing a role to another person. It became popular in 1959 as U.S President Harry S. Truman frequently used the phrase and had a sign on his Oval Office desk. The sign was a gift from a prison warden who was also a poker player.