# cricket

Pronunciation: US/AUS say "KRIK-it" /ˈkɹɪkɪt/; UK

## Noun

1. An insect of the order Orthoptera, especially the family Gryllidae, whose males make a chirping sound by rubbing their forewings together.
   - Simple: An insect that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wings against its back legs.
   - _A cricket somewhere behind the stove chirped all night long._
   - _Pet stores sell live crickets as food for lizards and frogs._
2. An outdoor game played with bats and a ball between two teams of eleven players, popular in England and many Commonwealth countries.
   - Simple: An outdoor sport for two teams of eleven players, played with bats and a ball, popular in England and many other countries.
   - _She took up cricket in college and now bowls for a club in New Jersey._
   - _The cricket season opens in April, when the grounds are still damp._
3. Complete silence and a total absence of communication. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: Total silence, when nobody says or writes anything at all.
   - _I emailed the landlord three times about the leak, and so far, crickets._
   - _The CEO asked for questions at the end of the town hall and got crickets._
4. Fair and sportsmanlike behavior, used mostly in the negative to say that something is unfair. *(British)*
   - Simple: Fair and honest behavior, used mostly to say that something is not fair.
   - _Leaking the rival bid to the press was hardly cricket, whatever the rules allowed._
   - _She refused to sign a contract she thought wasn't quite cricket._
5. A version of the game of darts, played under its own set of rules.
   - Simple: A game you play with darts, with its own special rules.
   - _At the bar's dartboard, they switched from 501 to cricket for the last round._
   - _In cricket, she closed out the bullseye before her opponent could score on it._
6. A relatively small section of roof built to divert water away from a horizontal line where the roof meets a chimney, wall, expansion joint, or other projection.
   - Simple: A small part of a roof that sends water away from where the roof meets a chimney or wall.
   - _The inspector noted that the chimney lacked a cricket, so meltwater was pooling against the brick._
   - _Contractors framed small crickets where the flat roof met the parapet wall to keep water from ponding._
7. A signaling device that soldiers in hostile territory use to identify themselves to friendly troops when visibility is low.
   - Simple: A device soldiers behind enemy lines use to tell their own side who they are when it is hard to see.
   - _Lost among the hedgerows before dawn, the paratrooper clicked his cricket and heard two clicks in reply._
   - _The squad was issued crickets so scouts returning through the fog would not be mistaken for the enemy._
8. An audible warning made up of a continuously repeating chime, designed to be hard for pilots to ignore. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A warning sound that chimes again and again so pilots find it hard to ignore.
   - _The cricket kept sounding until the captain silenced it and ran the checklist._
   - _Halfway through the climb, the cricket went off and the master caution light came on._
9. A low wooden stool for resting the feet on. *(dialectal)*
   - Simple: A small wooden stool you rest your feet on.
   - _Mother kept a little cricket by her chair to rest her feet on while she knitted._
   - _The child stood on a cricket to reach the top kitchen shelf._

## Verb

10. To play the sport of cricket. *(rare)*
   - Simple: To play a game of cricket.
   - _He gave up the law and made his living by cricketing._
   - _The two brothers cricketed together for a club team every summer._

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 3, 7–8** — From Middle English creket, from Old French criket, a diminutive of criquer ("to make a cracking sound; creak"), from Middle Dutch kricken ("to creak; crack"), from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn, from Proto-Germanic *krakōną, and related to Middle English creken ("to creak"); all are ultimately imitative of the sound. Compare Dutch kriek, Middle Low German krikel and German Kreckel, all meaning "cricket".
**Meanings 2, 4–5, 10** — Perhaps from the Flemish dialect of Dutch, from the phrase met de krik ketsen ("to chase a ball with a curved stick").
**Meanings 6, 9** — Its origin is unknown, though a few similar words exist in Germanic languages, such as Norwegian krakk ("stool").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cricket (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).