quoit

English

WOTD – 18 February 2016
The equipment used for the game of deck-quoits. The quoits are the rings of rope.
An 1817 fashion plate depicting three women and a man playing an inverse ring toss, in which they are tossing a quoit

Etymology

From Middle English coyte (“flat stone”), from Old French coite, from Latin culcita. Doublet of quilt.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /kɔɪt/
    • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /kɔɪt/, /kwɔɪt/
  • (dialectal, obsolete) IPA(key): /kweɪt/[1]
  • Rhymes: -ɔɪt

Noun

quoit (plural quoits)

  1. A flat disc of metal or stone thrown at a target in the game of quoits.
  2. A ring of rubber or rope similarly used in the game of deck-quoits.
  3. The flat stone covering a cromlech.
    • 1817, Charles Sandoe Gilbert, A Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, page 175:
      This quoit was brought from a karn about a furlong distance, near which is another cromlech, not so large.
  4. An ancient burial mound, synonymous with dolmen.
  5. The discus used in ancient sports.

Translations

Verb

quoit (third-person singular simple present quoits, present participle quoiting, simple past and past participle quoited)

  1. (intransitive) To play quoits.
  2. (transitive) To throw like a quoit.
    Synonyms: fling, toss; see also Thesaurus:throw
    • 1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book XXIII.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 630, lines 1038–1041:
      Each took / His ſtation, and Epeüs ſeized the clod. / He ſwung, he caſt it, and the Greecians laugh'd. / Leonteus, branch of Mars, quoited it next.

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Bingham, Caleb (1808), “Improprieties in Pronunciation, common among the people of New-England”, in The Child's Companion; Being a Conciſe Spelling-book […] ‎[1], 12th edition, Boston: Manning & Loring, →OCLC, page 76.

Anagrams

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