wicket
/ˈwɪkɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.59 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A service window, as in a bank or train station, where a customer conducts transactions with a teller
Canadian usage; British usage
noun
a ticket barrier at a rail station, box office at a cinema, etc.
noun
One of the two wooden structures at each end of the pitch, consisting of three vertical stumps and two bails; the target for the bowler, defended by the batsman.
noun
A dismissal; the act of a batsman getting out.
noun
The job of a wicketkeeper while the team is bowling.
Example Sentences
- "...and one, a cool, bold fellow, whom I know well, will unlock the town gate, and—for he has various talents—hopes, through his influence with a pretty daughter of one of the wardens, to leave unbarred a certain wicket in the postern on the seaward side."
- "He then pushed on at full speed, and at last got into the village; and just as they were on the point of catching hold of the horse, he sprung in through the farmer's gate, and the man slapt the wicket after him."
- "And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked / Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked; / His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay, […]"
- "As he did so he heard the shuffle of footsteps entering the chapel and the clicking of the confessional wicket."
- "Watt climbed the stone steps and stood before the wicket, looking through its bars. He admired the permanent way, stretching away on either hand, in the moonlight, and the starlight, as far as the eye could reach, as far as Watt's eye could have reached, if it had been inside the station."
- "The umpire placed the wickets 10 minutes before the match started."
Etymology
From Middle English wiket, from Anglo-Norman and Old Northern French wiket, from Old East Old Norse víkjask (“to move oneself, move around”), reflexive of víkja, víkva, ýkva (“to yield, turn, move, go”), from Proto-Germanic *wīkwaną (“to yield, bend, turn”). Compare modern French guichet, ultimately from the same Old Norse source.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: wiket, -, víkjask, *wīkwaną