cricket

1 of 3

noun (1)

crick·​et ˈkri-kət 

plural crickets

1

: any of a family (Gryllidae) of leaping orthopteran insects noted for the chirping notes produced by the male by rubbing together specially modified parts of the forewings

2

crickets : a conspicuous lack of response : silence

At one point I asked him a question and took a long sip of my drink to allow him a moment to pose the question back to me. It was crickets … Silence.

—The Star

And yet, nothing. Crickets. Silence.

—Kurt Bardella

You post day in and day out hoping to see the social side of social media start to happen. Sometimes, a like or two will pop up, but most of the time, you hear crickets. It's disheartening.

—Jordan Kasteler

3

: a low wooden footstool

4

: a small metal toy or signaling device that makes a sharp click or snap when pressed

Illustration of cricket

• cricket 1

cricket

2 of 3

noun (2)

1

: a game played with a ball and bat by two sides of usually 11 players each on a large field centering upon two wickets each defended by a batsman

2

: fair and honorable behavior

it wasn't cricket for her to break her contract

—Gerry Nadel

cricket

3 of 3

verb

cricketed; cricketing; crickets

intransitive verb

: to play the game of cricket

cricketer noun

Examples of cricket in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

For a new study in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Weiss and her co-authors recorded skittering cricket frogs from above and below the surface at 500 frames per second and then played the videos back much more slowly. —Rohini Subrahmanyam, Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2025

When Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary Get Back debuted in 2021, the fact that Jackson had used artificial intelligence to clean up previously unusable audio was greeted with enthusiasm from tech geeks, and crickets from most everyone else. —Nate Jones, Vulture, 25 Jan. 2025

Verb

Sports, especially cricket, and local drama and romance productions lead the consumption of premium streaming. —Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 19 Sep. 2024

Khan, who captained Pakistan to cricket World Cup glory in 1992 and entered politics four years later, rose to power on a ticket of anti-corruption. —Sophia Saifi, CNN, 6 Feb. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English criket, from Anglo-French, of imitative origin

Noun (2)

Middle French criquet goal stake in a bowling game

First Known Use

Noun (1)

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Noun (2)

1575, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

circa 1809, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing cricket

• house cricket
• Jerusalem cricket
• mole cricket
• Mormon cricket
• not cricket

Kids Definition

cricket

1 of 2 noun

crick·​et ˈkrik-ət 

: any of a family of leaping insects related to the grasshoppers and having leathery forewings used by the males to produce a chirping sound

cricket

2 of 2 noun

1

: a game played on a large field with bats, ball, and wickets by two teams of 11 players each

2

: fair play

cricketer noun

Etymology

Noun

Middle English criket "cricket (insect)," from early French criquet (same meaning); probably an imitation of the insect's sound

Noun

from early French criquet "goal stake in an old bowling game"