cricket [ME] This word is first recorded in 1575, and in an official document of 1598 a man of 59 swears that when he was a schoolboy he used to play cricket and other games on a particular bit of land in Guildford, Surrey. This would take the game back to the reign of Henry VIII. Cricket would have been very different then: the bats were more like hockey sticks, the wicket consisted of two stumps with one long bail and the ball was trundled along the ground rather than ‘bowled’ in the way that we understand. The word appears to be closely related to French criquet ‘a stick’, although whether this originally referred to the wicket or the bat is not entirely clear, nor is its exact origin. The idea of cricket being the epitome of honourable behaviour, as in ’It’s just not cricket!’, dates from the mid 19th century. In 1867 The Cricketer’s Companion told its readers: ‘Do not ask the umpire unless you think the batsman is out; it is not cricket to keep asking the umpire questions.’ The other cricket, the grasshopper-like insect, is a completely different word. It comes from Old French criquet ‘a cricket’, based on criquer ‘to crackle, click, or creak’, probably suggesting the chirping sound the insect makes. See also oaf.