Puck Meaning
/pʌk/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA mischievous or hostile spirit.
nounThe mischievous fairy-like creature from English folklore, like Puck from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
Sentence Examples
The puck of ice hockey is not spherical.
Tom shot the puck into his own net.
CEFR Practice Quiz
During the ice hockey match, the player hit the ____ with his stick.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ice hockey player slapped the ____ into the net with a powerful backhand shot.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”), from Proto-West Germanic *pūkō, from Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with Old Norse púki (“devil”) (dialectal Swedish puke). Doublet of pooka.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"William Tyndale allotted this character a role, of leading nocturnal travellers astray as the puck had been said to do since Anglo-Saxon times and the goblin since the later medieval period."
— 2017, Ronald Hutton, The Witch, Yale University Press, published 2018, page 232:
"In hockey a flat piece of rubber, say four inches long by three wide and about an inch thick, called a ‘puck’, is used."
— 1886 February 28, Boston Daily Globe, page 2:
"The game itself, though played by men, was probably meant to enact a mediation of the opposites of male and female, with a circular puck being the feminine symbol and the phallic hockey stick being the masculine symbol."
— 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 184:
"He reaches into the urinal and picks up the puck. He then walk over to the sink and replaces a bar of soap with the urinal puck."
— 2004, Art Directors Annual, volume 83, Rotovision, page 142:
"The puck position is allowed during competitions when performing multi-twisting multiple somersaults."
— 2013, The Sports Book: The Sports, the Rules, the Tactics, the Techniques:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
During the ice hockey match, the player hit the ____ with his stick.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ice hockey player slapped the ____ into the net with a powerful backhand shot.