What is "cricket"

Cricket \Crick"et\, n. [AS. cricc, crycc, crooked staff, crutch. Perh. first used in sense 1, a stool probably having been first used as a wicket. See Crutch.]

1. A low stool.

2. A game much played in England, and sometimes in America, with a ball, bats, and wickets, the players being arranged in two contesting parties or sides.

3. (Arch.) A small false roof, or the raising of a portion of a roof, so as to throw off water from behind an obstacle, such as a chimney.

Cricket \Crick"et\ (kr?k"?t), n. [OE. criket, OF. crequet, criquet; prob. of German origin, and akin to E. creak; cf. D. kriek a cricket. See Creak.] (Zo["o]l.) An orthopterous insect of the genus Gryllus, and allied gener

1. The males make chirping, musical notes by rubbing together the basal parts of the veins of the front wings.

   Note: The common European cricket is Gryllus domesticus; the common large black crickets of America are Gryllus niger, Gryllus neglectus, and others.

   Balm cricket. See under Balm.

   Cricket bird, a small European bird ( Silvia locustella); -- called also grasshopper warbler.

   Cricket frog, a small American tree frog ( Acris gryllus); -- so called from its chirping.

Cricket \Crick"et\, v. i. To play at cricket.
--Tennyson.

the insect, early 14c., from Old French criquet (12c.) "a cricket," from criquer "to creak, rattle, crackle," of echoic origin.

the game, 1590s, apparently from Old French criquet "goal post, stick," perhaps from Middle Dutch/Middle Flemish cricke "stick, staff," perhaps from the same root as crutch. Sense of "fair play" is first recorded 1851, on notion of "cricket as it should be played."

Etymology 1 n. 1 An insect in the order Orthoptera, especially family (taxlink Gryllidae family noshow=1), that makes a chirping sound by rubbing its wing casings against combs on its hind legs. 2 A wooden footstool. 3 A signalling device used by soldiers in hostile territory to identify themselves to a friendly in low visibility conditions 4 A relatively small area of a roof constructed to divert water from a horizontal intersection of the roof with a chimney, wall, expansion joint or other projection. 5 (context US slang in the plural English) Absolute silence; no communication. See crickets. Etymology 2

n. 1 (context sports English) A game played outdoors with bats and a ball between two teams of eleven, popular in England and many Commonwealth countries. 2 (context chiefly British English) An act that is fair and sportsmanlike, derived from the sport. vb. (context rare intransitive English) To play the game of cricket.

1. n. leaping insect; male makes chirping noises by rubbing the forewings together

2. a game played with a ball and bat by two teams of 11 players; teams take turns trying to score runs

3. v. play cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball sport contested by two teams.

Cricket or crickets may also refer to:

• Cricket (insect), family Gryllidae, also known as "true crickets"
  • Tettigoniidae, known as katydids or bush-crickets

Cricket is an illustrated literary magazine for children published in the United States, founded in September 1973 by Marianne Carus whose intent was to create " The New Yorker for children."

Cricket is a darts game that uses the standard 20 number dartboard with the triple and double rings. It is known by various names in Britain, including "Mickey Mouse", "Tactics" "Horse and Carriage", "Coach and Horses", "The Game", "Faldo", "Beds and Bulls" and "Oscar Boscar".

A cricket or saddle is a ridge structure designed to divert water on a roof around the high side of a chimney or the transition from one roof area to another, the cricket is normally the same pitch as the rest of the roof, but not always. Smaller crickets are covered with metal flashing, and larger ones can be covered with the same material as the rest of the roof.

The Cricket was a cyclecar manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, by the Cricket Cyclecar Company in 1914. It was a small cyclecar driven by a two-cylinder engine with a two-speed transmission. The vehicle sold for $385 ($8520.00 in 2009 currency). The company combined late in 1914 with the Motor Products Company who manufactured motorcycles.

Cricket, also called Cricket (Hearts and Wickets), is a short musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It was commissioned for Queen Elizabeth's 60th birthday celebration, and was first performed at Windsor Castle on 18 June 1986.

Several of the tunes from the show were later used for Aspects of Love, so the work was dropped from public performance or recording. Cricket was the last original musical Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote together .

The EA Cricket is a series of cricket video games published by EA Sports and designed for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2 platforms. Until now, 8 different games of the series have been released.

A cricket is a type of cockpit audio alert onboard commercial aircraft such as those of Airbus. Its sound is intentionally designed to be extremely difficult for pilots to ignore. The "chirp chirp" sound is named after the insect that it imitates.

Crickets (also known as "true crickets"), of the family Gryllidae, are insects related to bush crickets, and, more distantly, to grasshoppers. The Gryllidae have mainly cylindrical bodies, round heads, and long antennae. Behind the head is a smooth, robust pronotum. The abdomen ends in a pair of long cerci (spikes); females have a long, cylindrical ovipositor. The hind legs have enlarged femora (thighs), providing power for jumping. The front wings are adapted as tough, leathery elytra (wing covers), and some crickets chirp by rubbing parts of these together. The hind wings are membranous and folded when not in use for flight; many species, however, are flightless. The largest members of the family are the bull crickets, Brachytrupes, which are up to long.

More than 900 species of crickets are described; the Gryllidae are distributed all around the world except at latitudes 55° or higher, with the greatest diversity being in the tropics. They occur in varied habitats from grassland, bushes, and forests to marshes, beaches, and caves. Crickets are mainly nocturnal, and are best known for the loud, persistent, chirping song of males trying to attract females, although some species are mute. The singing species have good hearing, via the tympani (eardrums) on the tibiae of the front legs.

Crickets often appear as characters in literature. The Talking Cricket features in Carlo Collodi's 1883 children's book, The Adventures of Pinocchio, and in films based on the book. The eponymous insect is central to Charles Dickens's 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth, as is the chirping insect in George Selden's 1960 The Cricket in Times Square. Crickets are celebrated in poems by William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Du Fu. They are kept as pets in countries from China to Europe, sometimes for cricket fighting. Crickets are efficient at converting their food into body mass, making them a candidate for food production. They are used as food in Southeast Asia, where they are sold deep-fried in markets as snacks. They are also used to feed carnivorous pets and zoo animals. In Brazilian folklore, crickets feature as omens of various events.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket, a set of three wooden stumps sited at each end. One team, designated the batting team, attempts to score as many runs as possible, whilst their opponents field. Each phase of play is called an innings. After either ten batsmen have been dismissed or a set number of overs have been completed, the innings ends and the two teams then swap roles. The winning team is the one that scores the most runs, including any extras gained, during their period batting.

At the start of each game, two batsmen and eleven fielders enter the field of play. The play begins when a designated member of the fielding team, known as the bowler, delivers the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, towards a set of wooden stumps, in front of which stands one of the batsmen, known as the striker. The striker's role is to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps through use of his bat, and simultaneously strike it sufficiently well to score runs. The other batsman, known as the non-striker, waits at the opposite end of the pitch by the bowler. The bowler's intention is to both prevent the scoring of runs and to dismiss the batsman, at which point the dismissed batsman has to leave the field and another teammate replaces him at the crease.

The most common forms of dismissal are bowled, when the bowler hits the stumps directly with the ball, leg before wicket, when the batsman prevents the ball from hitting the stumps with his body instead of his bat, and caught, when the batsman hits the ball into the air and it is intercepted by a fielder before touching the ground. Runs are scored through two main methods: either hitting the ball sufficiently powerfully that it crosses the boundary, or through the two batsmen swapping ends by each simultaneously running the length of the pitch in opposite directions whilst the fielders are retrieving the ball. If a fielder is able to retrieve the ball sufficiently quickly and put down the wicket with either batsman out of his ground, a run-out occurs. Adjudication is performed on-field by two umpires.

The laws of cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). There are various formats ranging from Twenty20, played over a few hours with each team having a single innings of 20 overs, to Test cricket, played over five days with unlimited overs and the teams playing two innings apiece. Traditionally, cricketers play in all-white kit but in limited overs cricket they wear club or team colours. In addition to the basic kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball which is a hard, solid object made of compressed leather enclosing a cork core.

Although cricket's origins are uncertain, it is first recorded in south-east England in the 16th century. It spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, leading to the first international matches in the mid-19th century. ICC, the game's governing body, has over 100 members, ten of which are full members who play Test cricket. Women's cricket, which is organised and played separately, has also achieved international standard. Cricket is the world's second most popular spectator sport, after association football, and is followed primarily in Australasia, Great Britain and Ireland, the Indian subcontinent, southern Africa and the West Indies.