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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cricket.

An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family Gryllidae, that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkɹɪkɪt/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɾɪkɪt/Scotland, Wales/ˈkɹək.kət/New-Zealand/ˈkrɪ(k).keʈ/India
  1. An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family Gryllidae, that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs.

  2. An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family Gryllidae, that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs. In the form crickets: absolute silence; no communication.

    US · humorous · in-plural · slang
  3. A signalling device used by soldiers in hostile territory to identify themselves to a friendly in low visibility conditions.

  4. An aural warning sound consisting of a continuously-repeating chime, designed to be difficult for pilots to ignore.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English creket, crykett, crykette, from Old French criket (with diminutive -et) from criquer (“to make a cracking sound; creak”), from Middle Dutch kricken (“to creak; crack”), from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn, related to Middle English creken, criken (“to creak”), all ultimately of imitative origin. Compare Dutch kriek (“cricket”), Middle Dutch krikel, criekel, crekel (“cricket”) (with diminituve -el), Middle Low German krikel, krekel (“cricket”), German Kreckel (“cricket”). More at creak.

noun/ˈkɹɪkɪt/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɾɪkɪt/Scotland, Wales/ˈkɹək.kət/New-Zealand/ˈkrɪ(k).keʈ/India
  1. A game played outdoors with bats and a ball between two teams of eleven, popular in England and many Commonwealth countries.

    uncountable
  2. An act that is fair and sportsmanlike.

    UK · uncountable
  3. A variant of the game of darts. See Cricket (darts).

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

Perhaps from a Flemish dialect of Dutch met de krik ketsen (“to chase a ball with a curved stick”).

verb/ˈkɹɪkɪt/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɾɪkɪt/Scotland, Wales/ˈkɹək.kət/New-Zealand/ˈkrɪ(k).keʈ/India
  1. To play the game of cricket.

    intransitive · rare
Where this word comes from

Perhaps from a Flemish dialect of Dutch met de krik ketsen (“to chase a ball with a curved stick”).

noun/ˈkɹɪkɪt/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɾɪkɪt/Scotland, Wales/ˈkɹək.kət/New-Zealand/ˈkrɪ(k).keʈ/India
  1. A wooden footstool.

    dialectal
  2. A relatively small area of a roof constructed to divert water from a horizontal intersection of the roof with a chimney, wall, expansion joint, or other projection.

Where this word comes from

The etymology is unknown. A few similar words exist in Germanic languages, such as Norwegian krakk (“stool”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.