shuttlecock

noun
/ˈʃʌtl̩ˌkɒk/UK/ˈʃʌtl̩ˌkɑk/US/ˈʃɐtl̩ˌkɔk/

Etymology

From shuttle (from the back-and-forth sense of the word originating with loom weaving) + cock (from resemblance to a male bird's plume of tail feathers).

Definitions

  1. A lightweight object that is conical in shape with a cork or rubber-covered nose, used in…

    A lightweight object that is conical in shape with a cork or rubber-covered nose, used in badminton the way a ball is used in other racquet games.

    • In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round.
    • The practice of the game in this country is to keep the shuttlecock in the air by striking it from one person to another.
  2. The game of badminton.

    • Fla[via]. Come, Sir Pergamus, till your horse come, you and I'll go play at shuttle-cock. / Per[gamus]. A match i'faith. I love that sport a' life. Yet my mother charged me not to use it for fear of putting my arm out of joint.
    • Two people stand at opposite ends of the room, as in playing shuttlecock […]
  3. To move rapidly back and forth.

  4. + 1 more definition
    1. To send or toss back and forth

      To send or toss back and forth; to bandy.

      • to shuttlecock words
      • if the phrase is to be shuttlecocked between us!

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at shuttlecock. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01shuttlecock02nose03nostrils04nostril05air06nitrogen07temperature08serves09serve

A definitional loop anchored at shuttlecock. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

9 hops · closes at shuttlecock

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA