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puck

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Pronunciation

puck1 mischievous sprite

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

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