hockey

[hok-ee]

noun

Origin of hockey

1520–30; earlier hockie, perhaps equivalent to hock- hook¹ + -ie -ie

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for hockey

Contemporary Examples of hockey

I watch football, basketball, and hockey on TV and sometimes “The Bass Pros” on Outdoor Channel.
Up to a Point: They Made Me Write About Lena Dunham
P. J. O’Rourke
December 13, 2014
Barnes and Harper talked deeply about hockey, a subject that the prime minister has written a book about.
The GOP Has a New Darling, But He Lives in Canada
Tim Mak
October 23, 2014
They were also, according to NHL coaching great Scotty Bowman, the greatest lineup in the history of hockey.
Putin’s Hockey Pal Tells All: Slava Fetisov on ‘Red Army,’ Soviet Nostalgia, and What Drives Putin
Marlow Stern
October 9, 2014
Hockey outcomes are not obstacles to the mathematically impaired.
Up To a Point: Oops, I Enjoyed Soccer
P. J. O’Rourke
July 13, 2014
As Chris Rock put it in his great heroin and hockey routine, “Only junkies want heroin, only hockey fans watch hockey.”
The World Cup Still Hasn’t Conquered America
Allen Barra
July 8, 2014

Historical Examples of hockey

Hockey, dances, and good times were the subjects he dealt with.
Mary-'Gusta
Joseph C. Lincoln
This was observed by a gang of boys playing at hockey in the road.
The Manxman
Hall Caine
You know she was on the crew and the basketball team and the hockey team at college.
Highacres
Jane Abbott
And I can't play on the hockey team in the inter-class match this week!
Highacres
Jane Abbott
Hockey is all very well, but give me our orange groves and the blue sea.
The Jolliest School of All
Angela Brazil

British Dictionary definitions for hockey

hockey

noun

Also called (esp US and Canadian): field hockey
1. a game played on a field by two opposing teams of 11 players each, who try to hit a ball into their opponents' goal using long sticks curved at the end
2. (as modifier)hockey stick; hockey ball
See ice hockey

Word Origin for hockey

C19: from earlier hawkey, of unknown origin

hockey

noun

East Anglian dialect
1. the feast at harvest home; harvest supper
2. (as modifier)the hockey cart
Also: hawkey, horkey

Word Origin for hockey

C16: of unknown origin

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for hockey

after an isolated reference from Ireland dated 1527 ("The horlinge of the litill balle with hockie stickes or staves ..."), the word is next recorded 1838 from W. Sussex; of unknown origin, perhaps related to Middle French hoquet "shepherd's staff, crook," diminutive of Old French hoc "hook." The hooked clubs with which the game is played resemble shepherds' staves. In North America, ice hockey is distinguished from field hockey.