Forms: [3 wicat], 3–5 wykett(e, 3–6 wyket, wiket, 4–5 wikett, wekett, 4–6 wykket(t, wycket, wickett, 5 wickette, wekyt, (wigate), 5–6 weket, 6 weiket, 5– wicket. [a. AF. = ONF. wiket (Norman viquet, Walloon wichet) = OF. (mod. F.) guichet; usually referred to the Teut. root appearing in ON. víkja to move, turn (Sw. vika, Da. vige); but the forms OF. guischet, wisket, Pr. guisquet indicate the possibility of another source.]
1. A small door or gate made in, or placed beside, a large one, for ingress and egress when the large one is closed; also, any small gate for foot-passengers, as at the entrance of a field or other enclosure.
[12[?]. in E. M. Thompson, Cust. St. Aug. Cant. (1904), II. 256. Servientes sacristiæ tenentur esse intro ad ‘Covrefou’;… tunc deferentur claves ad sacristam, tam ‘wicat’ quam magnæ portæ cimiterii.]
a. 1300. K. Horn, 1074 (Camb. MS.). Horn gan to þe ȝate turne & þat wiket vnspurne.
a. 1366. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 528. I fonde a wiket small, So shett that I ne myght In gon.
a. 1400–50. Wars Alex., 5545. In at a wicket he went.
a. 1483. Engl. Gilds (1870), 320. ij. keyys for þe wekett.
1485. in Comp. Rolls Obed. St. Swithun’s, Winch. (1892), 384. Super magnam portam et le Wigate ejusdem portæ.
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, xxi. 462. Mawgys cam nere to the wycket of the gate.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, cxlvi. 546. He came to the abbey gate & callyd ye porter,… he openyd the weket & beheld Huon,… & sayd ‘pylgryme, enter when you plese.’ Then Huon enterid in at the weket.
1578. H. Wotton, Courtlie Controv., 295. He tooke his leaue of hir, and went out at a little wicket into a narrowe by lane.
1667. Milton, P. L., III. 484. Now Saint Peter at Heav’ns Wicket seems To wait them with his Keys.
1766. Goldsm., Hermit, xi. The wicket, opening with a latch, Received the harmless pair.
1818. Hazlitt, Engl. Poets, ii. 70. You see a little … old man by a wood-side opening a wicket.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., x. He who would thrive at Court must know the private wickets and concealed staircases.
1853. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xv. A … boy came out of a sort of office, and looked at us over a spiked wicket.
1899. Gosse, Donne, I. 92. The gates of the house were shut upon the dignified envoys, but, after some stay,… they were let in by the wicket.
b. fig. or in fig. context.
a. 1400. Prymer (1895), 12. Thou art wiket of þe hiȝ king, & þe greet ȝate of liȝt þat schyneþ briȝt.
c. 1400. 26 Pol. Poems, xxii. 4. Þou … wan in at þe wyket of synne.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 117 b. Stryue to entre by the strayte wycket.
1573–80. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 169. With hir that will clicket make daunger to cope, Least quickly hir wicket [i.e., mouth] seeme easie to ope.
1663. G. Mackenzie, Relig. Stoici, xii. (1665), 96. Seeing nothing is roomed in our judgement and apprehension, but what first entred by the wicket of sense.
1693. Congreve, Old Bach., III. ii. 22. Thou art the Wicket to thy Mistresses Gate, to be opened for all Comers.
a. 1870. Rossetti, Poems, Love’s Nocturn, v. At death’s wicket.
† 2. A small opening, esp. one through which to look out or communicate with the outside; a loophole, grill, or the like. Obs.
1296. Acc. Exch. K. R., 5/20 m. 4 dorso (P.R.O.). In .xxv. anulis ad Hecch’, tribus paribus gemell ad Wykett’ Bargie, xij Keuillis ferri ad Castrum .vij. d.
c. 1430. Syr Gener. (Roxb.), 4362. Ayenst the toure A postern ther is,… There is right A privey wiket; Draw we thidre … That our frendes may se vs within.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 527/2. Wykett, or lytylle wyndowe, fenestra.
1449[?]. Paston Lett., I. 83. They have made wykets on every quarter of the hwse to schote owte atte.
1489. Caxton, Faytes of A., II. xxii. 136. Eche of them shal haue a litel wiket open for to shote a gonne.
1616. Extr. Aberd. Reg. (1848), II. 341. With ane litill wicket … to luik in to the paissis.
1676. Coles, Dict., Wicket, a casement.
1677. Lond. Gaz., No. 1181/4. Having seized the Wicket or Sally-port, they got on the Ramparts.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar T., Wicket, a casement, also, a little door.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), XVIII. 853/2. Wicket, a small door in the gate of a fortified place, &c. or a hole in a door through which to view what passes without.
3. Cricket. A set of three sticks called stumps, fixed upright in the ground, and surmounted by two small pieces of wood called bails (BAIL sb.4 2), forming the structure (27 × 8 in.) at which the bowler aims the ball, and at which (in front and a little to one side of it) the batsman stands to defend it with the bat. (‘The wicket formerly consisted of two stumps and one long bail, forming a structure one foot high by two feet wide.)
Single wicket, a form of the game in which there is only one wicket, and therefore only one batsman ‘in’ at a time. (Also attrib.) Double wicket, the ordinary form, in which there are two wickets placed 22 yards apart, between which the two batsmen run. To keep wicket, to act as WICKET-KEEPER.
1733. in Waghorn, Cricket Scores (1899), 6. The wickets are to be pitched by twelve o’clock.
c. 1750. in ‘Bat,’ Crick. Man. (1850), 30 [Cricket] is performed by a person who, with a clumsy wooden bat, defends a wicket raised of two slender sticks, with one across.
1803. Laws of Cricket, 6. The Bowler … shall bowl four balls before he changes wickets.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., vii. Played a match once—single wicket.
1849. Laws of Cricket, in ‘Bat,’ Crick. Man. (1850), 60. The bowler is subject to the same laws as at double wicket.
1850. ‘Bat,’ Crick. Man., 98. A single wicket player.
1859. All Year Round, No. 13. 306/1. Sergeant-Major McJug, of the Sappers, one of our best bats, went to the wicket first with Winterburn, a lieutenant in the H.M. Foot.
1884. Lillywhite’s Crick. Ann., 10. Tylecote kept wicket well.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 22 May, 11/1. When the wickets were drawn Gloucestershire had made 361.
b. In various expressions referring to a batsman’s tenure of the wicket, or that part of an innings during which some particular batsman is (or might be) ‘in,’ i.e., at the wicket:
e.g., to take four wickets (said of a bowler), to put four batsmen ‘out’; three wickets (or third wicket) down, three men having been put out; the sixth wicket fell for 75 = the sixth batsman was put out after 75 runs had been made in the innings; to win by eight wickets, i.e., by exceeding the opponents’ full score of runs, with eight wickets yet to ‘fall’ (= with two men ‘not out’ and seven not having been ‘in’ in the innings).
1738. in Waghorn, Cricket Scores (1899), 21. Battle … left Eastbourne 43 to get, which they did with ease, leaving four wickets to be put up when Battle was beat. Ibid. (1749), 42. They … had two wickets to go down.
1877. Blackmore, Cripps, lv. [They] had beaten the dalesmen by ten wickets.
1881. Standard, 28 June, 3/1. Another wicket now fell,…—six for 76.
1883. Daily Tel., 15 May, 2/7. Full score, six wickets for 72 runs.
1900. Daily Chron., 16 Dec., 8/1. The first-wicket partnership of MacLaren and Hayward. Ibid. (1902), 4 June, 6/7. Jackson took four wickets with five consecutive balls.
c. transf. The ground between and about the wickets, esp. in respect of its condition; the pitch.
1862. Sporting Life, 14 June. Nottinghamshire … sent C. Daft and Brampton to two as fine wickets as the Surrey ‘or any other ground’ in England could furnish.
1881. Standard, 14 June, 3/8. The condition of the wicket, on which the fast bowling bumped and the slows popped about.
1881. Daily News, 9 July, 2/5. The wicket did not seem to play particularly well.
1884. Lillywhite’s Crick. Ann., 3. The English eleven commenced batting on a perfect wicket.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 April, 6/1. The wickets were all matting, he says, there being not a single turf wicket in the [Cape] colony.
4. U.S. Croquet. A hoop.
1868. Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women, xii. Jo was through the last wicket, and had missed the stroke…. Fred … gave a stroke, his ball hit the wicket, and stopped an inch on the wrong side.
1890. Century Dict., s.v. Croquet, Each person in turn strikes his own ball once; if his ball passes through a wicket … he is allowed another stroke.
5. In various technical senses.
a. A small gate or valve for emptying the chamber of a canal-lock, or in the chute of a water-wheel for regulating the passage of water. b. Coal-mining. A very wide heading or stall, usually with two road-ways, in a variety of pillar-and-stall work (called wicket-work) in use in North Wales. c. One of a set of gratings in the form of which the lead is made up in the manufacture of white lead.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., Wicket, a gate formed like a butterfly-valve, in the chute of a water-wheel, to graduate the amount of water passing to the wheel.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss.
1893. Times, 16 Dec., 9/5. The dangers to health begin with the second process, the conversion of the ‘wickets’ by the corrosion of an acid into white lead.
6. attrib. and Comb., as wicket-door (= sense 1), -grate, -window. See also WICKET-GATE, -KEEPER.
1813. Scott, Trierm., III. xix. An arch’d portal door, In whose broad folding leaves … Was framed a wicket window-grate,… The gallant Knight took earnest view The grated wicket-window through. Ibid. (1814), Wav., ix. A little oaken wicket-door.
1842. Borrow, Bible in Spain, xxxix. A dusky passage, at the end of which was a wicket door.
