conker
Americannoun
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conkers
plural
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a horse chestnut.
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the hollowed-out shell of a horse chestnut.
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conkers, a game in which a child swings a horse chestnut on a string in an attempt to break that of another player.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of conker
1840–50; probably originally conquer; compare conquering a game played with snail shells (the name of the game presumably later transferred to the playing pieces)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The single combat involves swinging a conker -- a hardened horse chestnut -- on a string at your opponent's nut with murderous venom, until one is smashed to pieces.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
And they were needed, with one man disqualified for trying to smuggle a non-conforming conker in.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
A Telegraph story included claims that the 82-year-old had cheated by swapping his real conker for a metal one and was also a head judge for the tournament.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2024
Unlike Olympic disciplines, conker success does not necessarily involve years of practice.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2023
The breeze lullabied the conker tree and the conker tree lullabied me.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
There had been fears the event would be cancelled for only the third time in its history due to the hot, dry summer, which caused conkers to fall from trees early.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2025
Mr Whalley said the conkers used this year would be smaller than average, due to the extreme weather, but it would not affect people's enjoyment.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2025
There were fears before the event that there could be a shortage of conkers due to high winds blowing horse chestnut seeds from trees earlier in the autumn.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2024
Recent storms had blown hundreds of conkers out of the trees, raising concerns that they might rot before the big day.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2024
This, we decided, would be our secret hiding place for sweets and other small treasures such as conkers and monkey-nuts and birds’ eggs.
From "Boy: Tales of a Childhood" by Roald Dahl
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