Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

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

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In the game of croquet, to drive off by a croquet, as an adversary's ball. See croquet, n., 2.
  • noun 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.
  • noun 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.
  • noun The act of croqueting.
  • transitive verb 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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable, games A game played on a lawn, in which players use mallets to drive balls through hoops (wickets).
  • noun 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.
  • noun countable A croquette.
  • verb 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.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb drive away by hitting with one's ball,
  • verb play a game in which players hit a wooden ball through a series of hoops
  • noun 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

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French dialectal, hockey stick, from Old North French, shepherd's crook; see crocket.]

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Examples

  • -- for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion they call croquet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are done nobody has to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever about it

    The Innocents Abroad Mark Twain 1872

  • -- for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the world, perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion they call croquet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls and don't carom on any thing of any consequence, and when you are done nobody has to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, and, consequently, there isn't any satisfaction whatever about it

    The Innocents Abroad — Volume 06 Mark Twain 1872

  • But Catalano, who came wearing earrings with balls the colors used in croquet, was not ready to give up the traditional game.

    Converting Croquet to ‘Toequet’ | Impact Lab 2007

  • Having said that, it should be noted that black_samvara has clothing on (or should that be off?) all of the players - croquet is definitely her game.

    October 7th, 2006 mynxii 2006

  • Chris Bennett, the English coach of the South African team, calls croquet "the last of the great Victorian games, which England exported to all the colonies."

    Different Strokes 2008

  • With an air of inquiry, but with no real hesitation, it crossed the tiny strip of turf that the charitable called the croquet lawn, and pushed its way through the open French window into the morning-room.

    Beasts and Super-Beasts 1870-1916 Saki 1893

  • There is the usual lawn tennis, and croquet, which is rather falling into desuetude, but still affords unequalled opportunities for flirtation.

    Floyd Grandon's Honor Amanda Minnie Douglas 1873

  • They have created a sport without primal feelings - it's called croquet.

    Thestar.com - Home Page Cathal Kelly 2011

  • “Since many sports had just been invented in Britain that required a flat soft ground (such as croquet, cricket, soccer, and rugby), a more efficient way of blah blah blah ...”

    3:30am: A Conversation 2005

  • “Since many sports had just been invented in Britain that required a flat soft ground (such as croquet, cricket, soccer, and rugby), a more efficient way of blah blah blah ...”

    Archive 2005-08-01 2005

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