Meaning of the buck stops here | Babel Free

Definitions

A statement that no excuses will be made, that the speaker is going to take direct responsibility for matters, rather than pass the responsibility to higher authorities.

idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“Well, nobody else can make a decision but me because I was the President and the final decision comes to the President, you know. I used to have a sign on my desk that said, "The Buck Stops Here." The buck stops at the president's desk when he's president of the United States, and he either makes the decisions or he lets them go by default, and you can't afford to do that when you're president.”

“1994 January 25, William J. Clinton, State of the Union Address, 2004 Gutenberg eBook, If you will stick with this plan, we will post three consecutive years of declining deficits for the first time since Harry Truman lived in the White House. And once again, the buck stops here.”

CEFR level