croquet

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkɹəʊkeɪ/, /ˈkɹəʊki/ (UK); /kɹoʊˈkeɪ/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French croquet, from a northern French dialect word croquet “hockey stick”,^[2][3][4] from Old Northern French croquet “shepherd's crook”,^[2][3][4] a variant of Old French crochet “hook” (see crochet),^[3][5] from croc, from Old Norse krókr “hook” (see crook).^[4] Merriam-Webster instead traces it to obsolete French croquet “sharp blow”, from croquer.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A lawn game in which wooden balls are driven with mallets through hoops set in the ground (1851 in Etymonline; 1855 in Merriam-Webster; 1858 in the OED and Barnhart).^[4][6][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The game is said to have originated in Brittany,^[4] was popularized in Ireland about 1830 and introduced into England about 1850, where it was very popular until the early 1870s.^[4] From 1858 the word was also a verb, for the shot in which a player drives away an opponent's ball by striking his own ball placed against it,^[7][2][6] and the noun was used of that shot from 1874.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1830 – the game popular in Ireland.^[4]
• 1851 – croquet in English.^[4]
• 1858 – verb, to drive away an opponent's ball.^[7]
• 1874 – noun, the croquet shot.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An outdoor game in which players use long-handled mallets to drive wooden balls through a series of wickets or hoops set out on a lawn.
2. The act of driving away an opponent's ball by striking one's own ball when the two are in contact.

Verb

1. To drive away an opponent's ball by a croquet shot.

Word family

• roque

Related words

• crochet
• crook
• crotchet
• croquette
• pall-mall

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press