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View synonyms for rain check

rain check

or raincheck

noun

  1. a ticket for future use given to spectators at an outdoor event, as a baseball game or concert, that has been postponed or interrupted by rain.
  2. an offered or requested postponement of an invitation until a more convenient, usually unspecified time:

    Since you can't join us for dinner, we'll give you a rain check.

  3. a ticket, coupon, or the like, entitling a customer to purchase at a later date and for the same amount a sale item that is temporarily out of stock.


rain check

noun

  1. a ticket stub for a baseball or other game that allows readmission on a future date if the event is cancelled because of rain
  2. the deferral of acceptance of an offer, esp a voucher issued to a customer wishing to purchase a sale item that is temporarily out of stock, enabling him or her to buy it at the special price when next the item is available
  3. take a rain check informal.
    to accept the postponement of an offer
“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


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Word History and Origins

Origin of rain check1

First recorded in 1880–85
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Idioms and Phrases

A promise that an unaccepted offer will be renewed in the future, as in I can't come to dinner Tuesday but hope you'll give me a rain check . This term comes from baseball, where in the 1880s it became the practice to offer paying spectators a rain check entitling them to future admission for a game that was postponed or ended early owing to bad weather. By the early 1900s the term was transferred to tickets for other kinds of entertainment, and later to a coupon entitling a customer to buy, at a later date and at the same price, a sale item temporarily out of stock.
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Example Sentences

The glitchy first night — power problems, a producer explained to disappointed guests, sent home with a rain check — was corrected by the following evening.

I appreciate your generosity in extending the invitation as a rain check to me.

They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted a rain-check on his.

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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.

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