Lyrics
One, two, buckle my shoe, Three, four, open the door, Five, six, pick up sticks, Seven, eight, lay them straight, Nine, ten, a good fat hen, Eleven, twelve, dig and delve, Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting, Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen, Seventeen, eighteen, maids a-waiting, Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty.
#One, Two, Buckle My Shoe at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Sung in
- English
- Words by
- Traditional
- First known
- 1805 (recalled in America from c. 1780)
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- playful, traditional, counting
- Last updated
- 25 July 2026
How to sing it
- Hold up fingers for each number as you count in pairs — one-two, three-four.
- Mime the rhyming action each time — buckle a shoe, open a door, pick up and lay sticks straight.
- Slow down at the end so "nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty" lands as the finish.
Meaning and origin
This is counting disguised as a chore-list. The rhyme walks from one to twenty two numbers at a time, and hangs a small rhyming action on each pair: buckle my shoe, open the door, pick up sticks, lay them straight. A child gets to twenty almost by accident, pulled along by the rhymes and the pictures of ordinary life — shoes and doors, sticks and hens, maids in the kitchen — until the plate is empty and the counting is done.
It reached print in Britain in 1805, but it was clearly older in the mouth than on the page: a folklorist recorded an American woman remembering a version from around 1780. Like most counting rhymes it belongs to no author and drifts gently between versions.
None of the words carries a secret. They are there to rhyme with the numbers and to keep a small hand busy — buckling, opening, picking up — while the real work, learning to count, goes on quietly underneath.
Common questions
- What kind of rhyme is this?
- A counting rhyme. It runs the numbers from one to twenty two at a time, and pairs each pair with a small rhyming action — buckle my shoe, open the door, pick up sticks — so children rehearse counting while doing or picturing each step.
- How old is "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe"?
- It was first printed in Britain in 1805, in "Songs for the Nursery". A collector also recorded an older American memory of it, from around 1780 in Massachusetts, so it was clearly in spoken use before it reached print.
- Do the words mean anything?
- Not really — they are chosen to rhyme with the numbers and to give small, homely pictures of daily life: shoes and doors, sticks and hens, maids in the kitchen. The point is the count, not the story.
