Ice Hockey. a black disk of vulcanized rubber that is to be hit into the goal.
Computers, British. mouse.
Also called hobgoblin. Also called Robin Goodfellow. a particularly mischievous sprite in English folklore who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
puck, a malicious or mischievous demon or spirit; a goblin.
a small disc of hard rubber used in ice hockey
a stroke at the ball in hurling
slang a sharp blow
to strike (the ball) in hurling
slang to strike hard; punch
First recorded in 1890–95; alteration of poke 1
First recorded before 1000; Middle English pouke, Old English pūca; cognate with Old Norse pūki a mischievous demon
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.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is an imposing black puck of a building squatted over the most claustrophobic transit hub in America.
From BBC ● Jul. 3, 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
He whiffed and, as his belly careened iceward, made a desperate swat at the puck that lifted it over the glove of the Vegas goalie to give the Hurricanes a lead they’d never relinquish.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
A hologram of neon greens, reds, and yellows explodes from the puck, making my eyes ache.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Everlane declined to comment on the Puck report.
From MarketWatch ● May 19, 2026
The boy turns out to be a distrupter — part Puck from “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” part Ariel from “The Tempest” and very much all Wilson.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026
The programming for the event was first reported by Puck.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 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
"This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt," &c.
From Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland by Crocker, T. Crofton
It has tubs of brown butter, frozen flat or portioned into little pucks, ready to make a weeknight bowl of noodles taste as if someone planned better than you did.
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 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
The Italians’ first encounter with the top-tier pros this week had been much smoother—mainly because there were no pucks or goals involved.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 2026
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
These were the future stars of the sport—seventeen-, eighteen-, and nineteen- year-olds who had been skating and shooting pucks since they were barely more than toddlers.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
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.
