game

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɡeɪm/^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English game, West Midland gome,^[3] inherited from Old English gamen (“joy, fun, amusement”).^[4][3][5] It has cognates throughout Germanic (Old Saxon gaman, Old High German gaman (“sport, merriment”), Old Norse gaman).^[4][3][6] Barnhart and Hoad call it of unknown origin;^[3][7] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford identify it with Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌽 (gaman, “participation, fellowship”), from the collective prefix Proto-Germanic *ga- and the word for “person” (see man), giving a sense of “people together”.^[4][8][9] The final n was lost, perhaps by being mistaken for a suffix, as in clue, eve and maid.^[4][7]

Game meaning “lame”, as in “a game leg”, is a separate word first recorded in 1787, originally north Midlands dialect, and of unknown origin;^[10][4][11] suggestions include a variant of gammy,^[3][4][8] Old French gambi (“bent, crooked”),^[9][12] and Irish cam (“crooked”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Joy, fun, amusement (Old English gamen, about 725, in Beowulf).^[10][14]

Semantic evolution

The original sense was “amusement, fun, pleasure”, which Shakespeare still uses (“We have had pastimes here and pleasant game”);^[15][8] other early meanings were a jest and a laughing stock.^[15][14] The sense “a contest played according to rules” is first attested about 1200, of athletic contests, chess and backgammon.^[4] About 1300 the word was used of the sport of hunting, hawking and fishing, and so of the wild animals hunted, the game in fair game.^[4][3][15] Its use for sexual play dates from about 1200;^[14][15] on the game, in prostitution, is from the late 19th century, and in the mid 18th century it was thieves' slang for stealing.^[15][16] Playing the game, acting fairly, is from the early 19th century, popularized by Newbolt's “Play up! play up! and play the game!” (1897).^[15][9] The adjective “plucky, spirited” (1725) comes from gamecock, a cock bred for fighting (1670s);^[4][3][17] “ready and willing”, as in game for anything, followed in the mid 19th century.^[8][14] The verb, from Old English gamenian (“to play, jest”), was little used after about 1400;^[4] the modern sense “to gamble” dates from the early 16th century,^[18][3] and to game the system, to exploit its rules, is a later development.^[18][2] Game plan (1941) comes from American football, and game show is first attested in 1961.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English gamen, joy, fun.^[10]
• c. 1200 – a contest played to rules; sexual play.^[4][15]
• c. 1300 – hunting; the animals hunted.^[4][3]
• c. 1460 – make game of.^[14]
• 1512 – verb, to gamble.^[18]
• 1658 – the flesh of game animals as food.^[16]
• 1725 – adjective, plucky.^[3][4]
• 1787 – game, lame (a separate word), in Grose's Provincial Glossary.^[10][4]
• 1830 – the number of points needed to win (1674 in the Historical Thesaurus).^[4][16]
• 1941 – game plan.^[4]
• 1961 – game show.^[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An activity engaged in for amusement; a pastime.
2. A competitive activity or sport played according to rules; a single contest of it.
3. (games) An organized meeting of sporting contests: the Olympic Games.
4. A portion of play forming a scoring unit, as in tennis; the number of points needed to win.
5. A video game or the equipment for a board game.
6. A scheme or strategy; a trick: what's his game?.
7. Wild animals or birds hunted for sport or food; their flesh.
8. (informal) A line of work: the advertising game.

Verb

1. To play for stakes; to gamble.
2. To take dishonest advantage of; to exploit the rules of: game the system.
3. To play video games.

Adjective

1. Plucky and unyielding; spirited.
2. Ready and willing: game for anything.
3. (of a limb) Lame, injured: a game leg.

Word family

• gamely
• gameness
• gamelike
• gameless
• gamer

Related words

• gamble
• gammon
• gamecock
• gammy

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ a b c d e f g Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
17. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
18. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster