shuttlecock

English

WOTD – 8 August 2012    

A shuttlecock.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

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Etymology

shuttle (from the back-and-forth sense of the word originating with loom weaving) + cock (from resemblance to a male bird's plume of tail feathers). Attested from 1522.

Noun

shuttlecock (plural shuttlecocks)

1. (badminton) A lightweight object that is conical in shape with a cork or rubber-covered nose, used in badminton the way a ball is used in other racquet games.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 123:

     In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round.

   • 1859, Ebenezer Landells, The Boy's Own Toy-maker, page 122:

     The practice of the game in this country is to keep the shuttlecock in the air by striking it from one person to another.

   • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew, ch. 2:

     Crudely as they had calculated they were at first justified by the event: she was the little feathered shuttlecock they could fiercely keep flying between them.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see the citations page.
2. (dated) The game of badminton.
   • 1830, Mrs. Marcet (Jane Haldimand), Bertha's visit to her uncle in England (volume 3, page 105)

     Two people stand at opposite ends of the room, as in playing shuttlecock […]

Synonyms

• (lightweight object used in badminton): birdie

Translations

badminton ball

• Arabic: ريشة (ar) (riisha) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 羽毛球 (cmn) (yǔmáoqiú), 板羽球 (cmn) (bǎnyǔqiú), 毽子 (cmn) (jiànzi)

• Dutch: shuttle (nl) m, pluimbal (nl) m, vederbal (nl) m
• Finnish: sulkapallo (fi)
• French: volant (fr) m
• German: Federball (de) m
• Hungarian: tollaslabda (hu)
• Irish: eiteán (ga) m
• Italian: volano (it) m
• Japanese: 羽根 (ja) (はね, hane), 羽根つき (ja) (はねつき, hane-tsuki)

• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: fjærball (nb) m

  Nynorsk: fjørball (nn) m

• Polish: lotka (pl) f
• Portuguese: peteca (pt)
• Russian: волан (ru) (volán) m , воланчик (ru) (volánčik) m 
• Serbo-Croatian: лоптица (sh) (loptica) f
• Spanish: volante (es) m
• Swedish: fjäderboll (sv)
• Thai: ลูกขนไก่ (th) (lūkkhohnkaị̀)
• Ukrainian: волан (uk) (volán) m 
• Vietnamese: quả cầu lông (vi) m

Related terms

• battledore and shuttlecock

Verb

shuttlecock (third-person singular simple present shuttlecocks, present participle shuttlecocking, simple past and past participle shuttlecocked)

1. To move rapidly back and forth
2. To send or toss back and forth; to bandy

   to shuttlecock words

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Thackeray to this entry?)

Translations

to move rapidly back and forth

• Finnish: singahdella (fi), sinkautella (fi)

• Portuguese: ricochetear (pt)