Skittles (sport)
old European lawn game
Skittles is a lawn game and target sport played in the United Kingdom and Ireland in which a ball is thrown at a set of nine wooden pins, usually arranged in a diamond formation, in an attempt to knock them over in as few throws as possible. It is of European origin, and variations of the game are still played in many other countries, such as quilles in France, kegeln in Germany and Austria, and bolos and Asturian bowling in Spain. It is similar to, but distinct from, nine-pin bowling and is considered the forerunner of Tenpin bowling, which is typically thought to have made its way to the United States with Dutch colonists.
Etymology
The etymology of the name is uncertain. The earliest known usage of the word in English is 1634. It phonetically matches the Danish and Swedish word skyttel, meaning 'shuttle, marble, moveable bar in a gateway', but no evidence has been found between these words and the game of skittles.. In 1801 Joseph Strutt suggested that the word for a skittle evolved from the French quille and appeared in English first as kayle, and that kayle-pins then becames known as kittle-pins and eventually skittle-pins. However, although the form 'kittle-pin' does appear in the 17th century, it postdates the usage of 'skittle'. Kayle first appears in records in 1325.
The origin of Kayle is also uncertain.
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This entry incorporates text from “Skittles (sport)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.