croquet

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An outdoor game in which the players drive wooden balls through a series of wickets using long-handled mallets.
2. n. The act of driving away an opponent's croquet ball by hitting one's own ball when the two are in contact.
3. v. To drive away (an opponent's croquet ball) by hitting one's own ball when the two are in contact.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A game played on a lawn or a prepared piece of ground, with mallets, balls, pegs or posts, and a number of iron hoops or arches arranged in a certain order. The order differs, but that most commonly employed in the United States is shown in the illustration. It can be played by two or more, and, in the case of several playing, they may either be divided into two parties or play each for himself. The object of the players is, starting from one end of the field, to drive the balls belonging to their own side through the hoops to the peg at the opposite end of the field, and then back again to the first peg, or winning-peg. The side doing this first wins the game. In playing, each person in turn strikes his own ball once; if his ball passes through a wicket, or hits the turning-peg, he is allowed another stroke; and if he hits one of the other balls, he may drive that away by placing his own against it and striking his own, after which he has another stroke.
2. n. In the game of croquet, the act of a player, upon hitting a second ball with his own, of driving that one away by a stroke on his own, which he holds firmly with his foot, after he has placed the two in contact.
3. In the game of croquet, to drive off by a croquet, as an adversary's ball. See croquet, n., 2.

Wiktionary

1. n. uncountable, games A game played on a lawn, in which players use mallets to drive balls through hoops (wickets).
2. n. countable, games A shot in this game in which the striker's ball and another ball are moved by hitting the striker's ball when they have been placed in contact following a roquet.
3. n. countable A croquette.
4. v. transitive, games To play a shot in the game of croquet in which the striker's ball and another ball are moved by hitting the striker's ball when they have been placed in contact following a roquet.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An open-air game in which two or more players endeavor to drive wooden balls, by means of mallets, through a series of hoops or arches set in the ground according to some pattern.
2. n. The act of croqueting.
3. v. In the game of croquet, to drive away an opponent's ball, after putting one's own in contact with it, by striking one's own ball with the mallet.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. drive away by hitting with one's ball,
2. v. play a game in which players hit a wooden ball through a series of hoops
3. n. a game in which players hit a wooden ball through a series of hoops; the winner is the first to traverse all the hoops and hit a peg