buy the farm

Etymology
Not known with certainty. Two long-held hypotheses are as follows: One describes combat soldiers wistfully wishing to go back home, buy a farm, and live peacefully there; later, after they had been killed in combat, their fellow soldiers would say that they had bought the farm (compare the established pattern of having gone to that big [whatever sort of nice place] in the sky). Another links the phrase to the idea that governments compensate farmers whose land is damaged by a military aircraft crash; a deceased pilot was thus said to have bought the farm, and the term eventually entered wider use.

Verb

 * 1)  To die; generally, to die in battle or in a plane crash.

Usage notes

 * This idiom is most often found in its past tense and past participle form.

Synonyms

 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die
 * See also Thesaurus:die

Translations

 * Danish: tage billetten
 * Finnish:
 * French:,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,
 * German:
 * Norwegian: skride hen til de evige jaktmarker
 * Portuguese: