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• puck
  puck

  noun

  a black disk of vulcanized rubber that is to be hit into the goal.
• Puck
  Puck

  noun

  a particularly mischievous sprite in English folklore who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

puck

¹ American  

[puhk] / pʌk /

noun

• pucks
  plural

1. Ice Hockey. a black disk of vulcanized rubber that is to be hit into the goal.

2. Computers, British. mouse.

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Puck ² American  

[puhk] / pʌk /

noun

1. Also called hobgoblin, Robin Goodfellow. a particularly mischievous sprite in English folklore who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

2. puck, a malicious or mischievous demon or spirit; a goblin.

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puck ¹ British  

/ pʌk /

noun

1. a small disc of hard rubber used in ice hockey

2. a stroke at the ball in hurling

3. slang a sharp blow

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verb

1. to strike (the ball) in hurling

2. slang to strike hard; punch

puck ² British  

/ pʌk /

noun

1. Also called: Robin Goodfellow. (often capital) a mischievous or evil spirit

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• puckish
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• pucks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of puck¹

First recorded in 1890–95; alteration of poke ¹

Origin of Puck²

First recorded before 1000; Middle English pouke, Old English pūca; cognate with Old Norse pūki a mischievous demon

Explanation

If you hit a puck with a long stick on a regular basis, you're probably a hockey player. A puck is a round, hard rubber disc. Dictionaries hate to resort to "origin uncertain," but a few of them do when it comes to puck, the small rubber disk used in ice hockey. One theory is that it's related to the verb poke, by way of the archaic verb form of puck, "to hit or strike." Its toehold in history got firmer footing 90 years ago, when the National Hockey League was formed. In the 1930's, hockey players were referred to as pucksters in sports reporting lingo.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

puck Puck pucks

In my office: an Underwood No. 5 typewriter and a hockey puck in a Plexiglas case — the actual puck from the only goal I ever scored playing college hockey, in 1977.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the device would be circular like a donut, about the size of a hockey puck, and cost between $300 and $400, with a launch planned for 2027.

From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026

Olympic hockey team’s win over the Soviets in 1980—is a triumph tattooed on the national memory, though the memory frequently forgets that the game wasn’t shown until three hours after the puck dropped.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026

And they differ from Apple Vision Pro - which is mainly designed for use at home - as they do not require a wire connected to a "puck", or battery pack.

From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026

January 21 then deftly passes the puck to his teammate December 20—wow! what’s he doing out there?!—who shrugs off the onrushing defender May 17 and slides a cross-crease pass back to January 21.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Puck News first reported Ellison’s latest plan to quickly move Paramount’s operations as soon as October.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

Last week, a still-unconfirmed report in Puck stated that Netflix is entering initial talks to acquire Letterboxd, the film-logging and review platform beloved by hardcore and casual cinephiles alike.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026

Puck reported that Everlane’s CEO had been seeking an investor to help it deal with roughly $90 million in debt.

From MarketWatch ● May 19, 2026

According to reporting by Puck, it would have emphasized Michael’s “traumatizing” strip search, thus doubling down on a strategy that has worked so far: Making him the victim.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026

When we speak of Puck, however, we refer, of course, to the edition printed in English, for, as a matter of fact, twenty-four numbers of a German Puck were published during the year 1876.

From The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature by Frederic Taber Cooper

The toasted sourdough crumbles, more ice shavings than proper pucks, also lowered the score.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026

The pucks are featured in an “Olympics ‘26” display that also contains a hockey stick used by Brady Tkachuk of the U.S. team and a U.S. jersey worn by four-time Olympian Hilary Knight.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2026

But these coffee pucks, which are not yet available for sale, will require an entirely new machine to run.

From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2024

There are periods in any given day when my kids have the energy of pucks flying across an air hockey table.

From Slate ● Oct. 20, 2024

He kept at it, lining up the pucks and slapping them at me, faster and faster, and it didn’t take long for the muscle memory to kick in.

From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely