wicket

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wiket,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman wiket, from Old Northern French wiket,^[5][6][7][2] the northern form of Old French guichet, whence French guichet (“ticket window”);^[5][6][3] compare Norman viquet and Walloon wichet.^[5][6] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the third quarter of the 12th century, meaning a wicket gate, a small door or opening.^[8] The French word is usually referred to the Germanic root of Old Norse víkja (“to move, turn”),^{[5][7][9][10]} as in Swedish vika and Danish vige,^[5][7] and compared with vík (“nook”),^[3][6] Old English wīcan (“to give way, yield”) and Middle Dutch wiket;^[6][4][11] Wiktionary gives Proto-Germanic *wīkwaną,^[12] and Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *weyk- (“to bend, wind”), the idea being something that turns.^[6][13] Hoad calls the origin uncertain,^[14] and the OED notes that the forms guischet and Old Occitan guisquet may point to another source,^[5] and Skeat derived it from the root of whisk;^[15] Weekley reports that derivation but doubts it, since English has no -s-.^[16] It is related to weak and week.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small door or gate, especially one set in or beside a larger one: probably about 1225 in King Horn in Barnhart,^[3] before 1300 in the OED,^[5] early 13th century in Etymonline.^[6] The OED's earliest record of the word is in 1296, for a small opening such as a loophole or grille.^[5]

Semantic evolution

A wicket let people in or out without the trouble of opening the heavy main gate; from there the word came to mean any small gate for people on foot, or a small opening such as a loophole or grille.^[10][5] Chaucer used it seven times.^[17] In cricket the word is recorded from 1662,^[5] from 1733 in Barnhart and Etymonline;^[3][6] the link with a gate is clearer when one knows that the first wickets had two stumps with one long bail.^[10] From 1738 it also referred to a batsman's turn at the wicket, from 1862 to the pitch, and since 1941 it has given phrases like on a good wicket, in a favourable position.^[5] In American English it has meant a croquet hoop since 1868 (Louisa May Alcott's Little Women),^[5] and a ticket-office or teller's window with a grille, a sense Barnhart dates to 1813.^[3][18] Technical senses followed, such as a small sluice gate in a canal lock (1875).^[5] In 16th-century slang wicket was the mouth or throat.^[19]

Timeline

• third quarter of the 12th century – Anglo-Norman wiket, a wicket gate.^[8]
• c. 1225 – a small door or gate (King Horn).^[3]
• 1296 – a small opening, a loophole or grille.^[5]
• 1573 – slang, the mouth.^[19]
• 1662 – cricket, the stumps and bails.^[5]
• 1738 – cricket, a batsman's tenure of the wicket.^[5]
• 1813 – a window with a grille.^[3]
• 1862 – cricket, the pitch.^[5]
• 1868 – US, a croquet hoop.^[5]
• 1875 – a small sluice gate in a canal lock.^[5]
• 1941 – on a good wicket, in a favourable position.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small door or gate, especially one set in or beside a larger one.^[18][4][5]
2. (chiefly US) A small window or opening with a grille, as at a ticket office or bank.^[18][4][7]
3. A small sluice gate, as in a canal lock or the chute of a waterwheel.^[18][5]
4. (US) A croquet hoop.^[18][5]
5. (cricket) Either of the two sets of three stumps topped by two bails, at which the bowler aims and which the batsman defends.^[18][5][7]
6. (cricket) The strip of ground between the wickets; the pitch.^[5]
7. (cricket) A batsman's turn at batting, or his dismissal: to take a wicket.^[5][7]

Word family

• single wicket
• sticky wicket

Related words

• weak
• week
• wicketkeeper

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
17. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
18. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com