quoit

English

WOTD – 18 February 2016

The equipment used for the game of deck-quoits. The quoits are the rings of rope.

An 1817 fashion plate depicting three women and a man playing an inverse ring toss, in which they are tossing a quoit

Etymology

From Middle English coyte (“flat stone”), from Old French coite, from Latin culcita. Doublet of quilt.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɔɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /kɔɪt/, /kwɔɪt/
• (dialectal, obsolete) IPA^(key): /kweɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɔɪt

Noun

quoit (plural quoits)

1. A flat disc of metal or stone thrown at a target in the game of quoits.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 4: Calypso]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 54:

     He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. Must get those settled really.

2. A ring of rubber or rope similarly used in the game of deck-quoits.
3. The flat stone covering a cromlech.
   • 1817, Charles Sandoe Gilbert, A Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, page 175:

     This quoit was brought from a karn about a furlong distance, near which is another cromlech, not so large.

4. An ancient burial mound, synonymous with dolmen.
5. The discus used in ancient sports.

Translations

flat disc thrown at a target

• Czech: kroužek (cs) m
• Finnish: heittorengas
• German: Diskus (de) m, Wurfring m
• Ido: disko (io)
• Russian: мета́тельное кольцо́ n (metátelʹnoje kolʹcó)
• Swedish: ring (sv) c

Verb

quoit (third-person singular simple present quoits, present participle quoiting, simple past and past participle quoited)

1. (intransitive) To play quoits.
   • 1717, John Dryden, “Book I”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 20:

     Then, to preſerve the Fame of ſuch a deed, / For Python ſlain, he [Phoebus or Apollo] Pythian Games decreed. / Where Noble Youths for Maſterſhip ſhou'd ſtrive, / To Quoit, to Run, and Steeds and Chariots drive.

2. (transitive) To throw like a quoit.
   • 1791, Homer, W[illiam] Cowper, transl., “[The Iliad.] Book XXIII.”, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 630, lines 1038–1041:

     Each took / His ſtation, and Epeüs ſeized the clod. / He ſwung, he caſt it, and the Greecians laugh'd. / Leonteus, branch of Mars, quoited it next.

Anagrams

• Quito, toqui