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Origin and history of hockey

hockey(n.)

ball game played with a curved stick or club, 1527, implied in a document from Ireland ("The horlinge of the litill balle with hockie stickes or staves ..."), of unknown origin. Perhaps related to French hoquet "shepherd's staff, crook," diminutive of Old French hoc "hook." The hooked clubs with which the game is played resemble shepherds' staves. In North America, ice hockey is distinguished from field hockey, but hockey alone can mean either. Also known as shinny or shinty.

also from 1527

Entries linking to hockey

shinny(v.)

"to climb a rope, pole, tree-trunk, etc. by gripping with the arms and legs," by 1888, American English, from use of shins and ankles to do so; see shin (n.). The earlier verb was simply shin (1829). Related: Shinnied; shinnying.

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    puck
    "ice hockey disk," by 1891, of uncertain origin, possibly from puck (v.)...["The Game of Rink Hockey," in Harper's Young People, Feb. 3, 1891]...
    shindig
    That also was the name of an early game resembling hockey (1846); in this sense the word is perhaps from shinty (1771), the...name of a Scottish game akin to hockey, for which see shinny (n.)....
    polo
    ball game of eastern origin resembling field hockey played on horseback, 1872, Anglo-Indian polo, from Balti (Tibetan language...
    penalty
    The sporting sense of "disadvantage imposed on a competitor for a breach of the rules" is by 1885; the ice hockey penalty...
    rebound
    In modern sports, from 1917 in ice hockey, 1920 in basketball....
    roller
    combinations, it often means "done on or by means of roller-skates," for example roller derby (by 1936; see derby); roller hockey...
    rink
    measured off for curling;" extended to smooth wooden floors for roller-skating by 1875, to ice surfaces measured for ice hockey...
    check
    c. 1300, in chess, "a call noting one's move has placed his opponent's king (or another major piece) in immediate peril," from Old French eschequier "a check at chess" (also "chess board, chess set"), from eschec "the game of chess; chessboard; check; checkmate," from Vulgar Lati
    ice
    Old English is "ice, piece of ice" (also the name of the Anglo-Saxon rune for -i-), from Proto-Germanic *is- "ice" (source also of Old Norse iss, Old Frisian is, Dutch ijs, German Eis), of uncertain origin; possible relatives are Avestan aexa- "frost, ice," isu- "frosty, icy;" Af
    field
    Old English feld "plain, pasture, open land, cultivated land" (as opposed to woodland), also "a parcel of land marked off and used for pasture or tillage," probably related to Old English folde "earth, land," from Proto-Germanic *felthan "flat land" (Cognates: Old Saxon and Old F

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