FromAnglo-Norman,Old Northern Frenchwiket, fromOld Norse (specifically, Old East Norse)víkjas, diminutive ofvík. Compare modern Frenchguichet, ultimately from the same Old Norse source.
wicket (pluralwickets)
- Asmalldoor orgate, especially one beside a larger one.
1834,L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter IV, inFrancesca Carrara. […], volume III, London:Richard Bentley, […], (successor toHenry Colburn),→OCLC,page25:...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 certainwicket in the postern on the seaward side.
1906 August,Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, inPoems, New York, N.Y.:The Macmillan Company; London:Macmillan & Co., published October 1906,→OCLC, part 1, stanza IV,pages46–47: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,[…]
- A smallwindow or otheropening, sometimes fitted with agrating.
- 1978,Lawrence Durrell,Livia, Faber & Faber 1992(Avignon Quintet), p. 386:
- As he did so he heard the shuffle of footsteps entering the chapel and the clicking of the confessionalwicket.
- (British, Canada) A service window, as in a bank or train station, where a customer conducts transactions with ateller
1953,Samuel Beckett,Watt,[Paris]:Olympia Press,→OCLC:Watt climbed the stone steps and stood before thewicket, 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.
- aticket barrier at a rail station,box office at a cinema, etc.
- (cricket) One of the two wooden structures at each end of thepitch, consisting of three verticalstumps and twobails; the target for thebowler,defended by the batsman.
The umpire placed thewickets 10 minutes before the match started.
- (cricket) Adismissal; the act of abatsman gettingout.
He kept on takingwickets and bowled the opponents team out for 84.
- Thejob of awicketkeeper while the team isbowling.
He kept thewicket.
- (cricket) The period during which two batsmen battogether.
- (cricket) Thepitch.
- (cricket) The area around the stumps where the batsmen stand.
The captain told his fast bowler to bowl around thewicket.
- (croquet) Any of the smallarches through which the balls are driven.
- (skiing, snowboarding) A temporary metal attachment that one attaches one'slift-ticket to.
- (US, dialect) A shelter made from tree boughs, used by lumbermen.
1873, Andrew Leith Adams,Field and Forest Rambles:make kindly welcome whatever forest wanderer happens to enter thewicket of the log hit
- (mining) The space between the pillars, in post-and-stall working.[1]
- (Internet, informal) Anangle bracket when used inHTML.
- (veterinary) A device to measure the height of animals, usuallydogs.
small window or other opening
cricket: wooden structure at each end of the pit
cricket: period during which two batsmen bat together
cricket: area around the stumps where the batsmen stand
skiing: attachment that one attaches one's lift-ticket to
shelter made from tree boughs
mining: space between the pillars, in post-and-stall working
