Etymology about cricket

Etymology

A number of words have been suggested as sources for the term "cricket". In the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598 it is called creckett.^[6]

One possible source for the name is the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff.^[7] In Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, he derived cricket from "cryce, Saxon, a stick".^[8] In Old French, the word criquet seems to have meant a kind of club or stick.^[9]

Given the strong medieval trade connections between south-east England and the County of Flanders when the latter belonged to the Duchy of Burgundy, the name may have been derived from the Middle Dutch^[10] krick(-e), meaning a stick (crook).^[7]

Another possible source is the Middle Dutch word krickstoel, meaning a long low stool used for kneeling in church and which resembled the long low wicket with twostumps used in early cricket.^[11]

According to Heiner Gillmeister, a European language expert of Bonn University, "cricket" derives from the Middle Dutch phrase for hockey, met de (krik ket)sen (i.e., "with the stick chase").^[12] Dr Gillmeister believes that not only the name but the sport itself is of Flemish origin.^[13]