Kick: This Is an Idea Worth Kicking Around

kick has been given an important part in expressing human experience. The proud and happy mother feels the first signs of life kicking inside her womb. And that same life -- many years later -- comes to its end in a widely-used expression, to kick the bucket, meaning to die.

kick over the traces, meaning to resist the commands of one's parents, or to oppose or reject authority. Traces were the chains that held a horse or mule to a wagon or plow. Sometimes, an animal rebelled and kicked over the traces.

kick back some of their wages to their employers as part of their job. This kickback is illegal. So is another kind of kickback: a secret payment made by a supplier to an official who buys supplies for a government or company.

Kick around is a phrase that is heard often in American English. A person who is kicked around is someone who is treated badly. Usually, he is not really being kicked by somebody's foot. He is just not being treated with the respect that all of us want.

kick a person upstairs, although the pain can be as strong. You kick a person upstairs by removing him from an important job and giving him a job that sounds more important. . . But really is not.

kick the habit.