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Etymology and origin of the English word puck

Pronunciation

puck1 mischievous sprite

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Old English Prudentius glosses
Inherited from
Old English pūca via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *pūkô

Etymology

The sprite is inherited from Middle English pouke, also puke,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English pūca (“goblin, mischievous spirit”),[5][4][6][7] probably from Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“goblin, spook”), through *pūkō.[1][5] It is probably cognate with Old Norse púki (“mischievous demon, the Devil”),[5][7][8] Faroese púki, Norwegian puke (“devil, evil spirit”) and Swedish puke (“evil spirit, goblin”),[5] and with West Frisian puk (“goblin”).[2][3] Its further origin is unknown;[7][4][3] a link with the Germanic base of poke, a bag, has often been suggested,[5] and Merriam-Webster also relates it to pock.[2] The OED rejects the view that the Old Norse word was borrowed from English, because related forms with a wide range of meanings are found across Scandinavia.[5] Irish púca (the source of pooka) and Welsh pwca are taken from Scandinavian or English,[5] although Celtic origins for the English word have also been proposed,[4] and the Oxford Dictionary of English leaves it open whether the word is Celtic or Germanic.[9][10] Liberman notes that the word is nearly the same in Icelandic, Irish and Welsh, and that opinions on who borrowed it from whom vary.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

An evil, malicious or mischievous spirit or demon of popular belief: Old English, in glosses on Prudentius.[5][6] The word also appears in Old English place names, such as “Pucanwylle” in a grant of land in Somerset from 946, known from a later copy.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used for the Devil himself: Barnhart dates puke, pouke in this sense to probably before 1300,[12] and the OED quotes it from before 1300 in a Middle English miscellany.[5] About 1378 pouke meant an evil spirit or goblin, in a version of Piers Plowman,[12][3] and Hoccleve used it for a wicked person before 1450.[5] In the 16th century Puck became the name of a well-known mischievous fairy, also called Robin Goodfellow,[4][7][13] the sprite of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1600).[5][4] Johnson (1755) described Puck as a sprite among the fairies, common in romances, and guessed that the word was the same as pug.[14] From 1823 a puck could also be a person given to mischievous tricks,[5] and the adjective puckish is recorded from 1874.[3][12] In Irish English the word served as an intensifier in expressions of annoyance (1864, in Le Fanu), and to play the puck with something is still Irish usage.[5] The Scots and English dialect puck, also pouk and pook, meant a mischievous fiend or the deuce.[15]

Timeline

  • Old English – an evil or mischievous spirit.[5][6]
  • before 1300 – the Devil.[5][12]
  • c. 1378 – an evil spirit, a goblin, in Piers Plowman.[12]
  • before 1450 – an evil person (obsolete).[5]
  • 1600 – Puck, the mischievous sprite Robin Goodfellow, in Shakespeare.[5]
  • 1823 – a mischievous person, a prankster.[5]
  • 1864 – Irish English intensifier in expressions of annoyance.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A mischievous sprite or hobgoblin; with a capital, Puck, the sprite also called Robin Goodfellow.[2][16][5]
  2. A person who likes to play mischievous tricks; a prankster.[2][5][8]
  3. (archaic) An evil spirit or demon; the Devil.[2][16][5]

Word family

  • puckish

puck2 ice-hockey disc

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1886 Boston Daily Globe
Borrowed from
Irish poc
Ultimate origin
Irish poc

Etymology

The ice-hockey disc is probably named from a dialect verb meaning to hit or strike,[5][4][3][17] which the OED derives from a noun meaning a blow, borrowed from Irish poc (“butt, blow, stroke in hurling”),[5][16] itself either imitative or perhaps from poke.[5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate also takes the dialect verb as probably Irish, and glosses the Irish word literally as a buck.[16] Barnhart and Etymonline instead connect the dialect verb with the verb poke, to push,[3][4] and Random House and Merriam-Webster Unabridged call it an alteration of that word.[18][2] Klein and Etymonline record a further suggestion, Irish poc in the sense of a bag.[19][4] Several dictionaries call the word of unknown origin.[9][8][20][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flat piece of hard rubber used instead of a ball in ice hockey: 1886, in the Boston Daily Globe.[5] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1891,[3][4] when Harper's Young People described the puck as a circular piece of vulcanized rubber, one inch thick and three inches across.[4]

Semantic evolution

The word came from Irish English, where puck meant a blow or a stroke at the ball in hurling from 1855,[5][2] and the verb, to hit or strike, from 1861.[5][4][3] The English Dialect Dictionary records puck for a blow, especially one from a goat's horns, in Ireland, Lancashire and America.[15] A quotation from before 1641 that speaks of people who would pucke with hens is probably unrelated.[5] The Dictionary of Canadian English notes that the first organized indoor hockey game is generally placed in Montreal in 1875, and treats puck as a word of special cultural importance in Canada, as in drop the puck.[21] From 1931 the word was extended to other objects of the same shape or use;[5] from 1970 it named a computer pointing device, like a mouse with cross hairs, used to trace drawings.[5] In Irish slang puck is still a sharp blow and to puck to punch.[20][22] In Hiberno-English a puck is also a male goat, as in the Puck Fair at Killorglin, from poc.[23]

Timeline

  • 1855 – a blow, a stroke in hurling (Irish English).[5][2]
  • 1861 – verb, to hit, strike.[5][4][3]
  • 1886 – the disc used in ice hockey.[5]
  • 1891 – ice-hockey disc, in Barnhart and Etymonline.[3][4][16]
  • 1931 – an object resembling a puck.[5]
  • 1970 – a computer pointing device.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A hard rubber disc that players hit with sticks in ice hockey.[20][2][5]
  2. A disc of tough, springy material used in a vehicle or machine.[2]
  3. A pointing device like a mouse, with cross hairs, used to enter drawings into a computer.[5]
  4. (Irish) A sharp blow; in hurling, a stroke at the ball.[20][5][2]

Verb

  1. (Irish) To hit or punch hard; in hurling, to strike the ball: He pucked the ball up the field.[20][5][22]
  • pooka
  • pug
  • pock
  • poke
  • Robin Goodfellow

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Liberman, Anatoly, The Oxford Etymologist (blog column), OUPblog, blog.oup.com, p. "An Etymologist Looks at Puck and is Not Afraid", 20 February 2008
  12. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  18. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  19. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  20. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  21. ^ Dollinger, Stefan, ed., A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, 3rd ed. (online), Vancouver: University of British Columbia, dchp.arts.ubc.ca
  22. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  23. ^ Dolan, Terence Patrick (2004), A Dictionary of Hiberno-English: The Irish Use of English, 2nd ed., Dublin: Gill & Macmillan

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Puck.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/puck. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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