<P> A third theory suggests that the origin of the phrase comes from the Catholic custom of holy - water buckets: </P> <P> After death, when a body had been laid out...the holy - water bucket was brought from the church and put at the feet of the corpse . When friends came to pray...they would sprinkle the body with holy water...it is easy to see how such a saying as "kicking the bucket" came about . Many other explanations of this saying have been given by persons who are unacquainted with Catholic custom </P> <P> Alternatively, in the moment of death a person stretches his legs (in Spanish Estirar la pata means' to die') and so might kick the bucket placed there . </P> <P> Yet another theory seeks to extend the saying beyond its earliest use in the 16th century with reference to the Latin proverb Capra Scyria, the goat that is said to kick over the pail after being milked (920 in Erasmus' Adagia). Thus a promising beginning is followed by a bad ending or, as Andrea Alciato phrased it in the Latin poem accompanying the drawing in his Emblemata (1524),' Because you have spoilt your fine beginnings with a shameful end and turned your service into harm, you have done what the she - goat does when she kicks the bucket that holds her milk and with her hoof squanders her own riches' . Here it is the death of one's reputation that is in question . </P>

Where does the phrase kicked the bucket come from