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:
And they were needed, with one man disqualified for trying to smuggle a non-conforming conker in.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
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
Mr Jakins, a conker competitor since 1977, denied using a steel horse chestnut at any point in the tournament, and said he kept a steel conker on him for "humour value".
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2024
The "second biggest conker competition in the world" took place at The Locks Inn at Geldeston, near Beccles, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border earlier this month.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2024
The breeze lullabied the conker tree and the conker tree lullabied me.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Organisers of next month's World Conker Championships hope to have avoided cancelling it altogether following an appeal for help, after the hot, dry summer caused conkers to drop from their trees early.
From BBC ● Sep. 22, 2025
"Billy Connolly has worked his conkers off to make it look like he's just thought something up," he says.
From BBC ● May 20, 2025
All participants were required to follow a stringent set of rules to ensure the event was as fair as possible, which included the conkers and laces being provided by organisers.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2024
She now helps out by picking good nuts and threading about 2,000 conkers for battle.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2024
First years were playing conkers in the queue for the Black Swan Green bus.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
