puck
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puck¹
- /pʌk/
- /pʊk/ Ireland, Northern England
Rhymes with -ʌk
Where it comes from
From Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”), from Proto-West Germanic *pūkō, from Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), of uncertain origin.
Cognate with Old Norse púki (“devil”) (dialectal Swedish puke). Doublet of pooka.
noun pucks
- A mischievous or hostile spirit. William Tyndale allotted this character a role, of leading nocturnal travellers astray as the puck had been said to do since Anglo-Saxon times and the goblin since the later medieval period.
-
The mischievous fairy-like creature from English folklore, like Puck from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
Similar: Robin Goodfellow, faerie, faery, fairy, fay, sprite
Similar: goblin and fairy
puck²
- /pʌk/
- /pʊk/ Ireland, Northern England
Rhymes with -ʌk
Where it comes from
From or influenced by Irish poc (“stroke in hurling, bag”). Compare poke (1861).
verb pucks · pucking · pucked
- To hit, strike.
noun pucks
- A hard rubber disc; any other flat disc meant to be hit across a flat surface in a game. In hockey a flat piece of rubber, say four inches long by three wide and about an inch thick, called a ‘puck’, is used.
- An object shaped like a puck. He reaches into the urinal and picks up the puck. He then walk over to the sink and replaces a bar of soap with the urinal puck.
- A pointing device with a crosshair.
- A penalty shot.
puck³
- /pʌk/
- /pʊk/ Ireland, Northern England
Rhymes with -ʌk
Where it comes from
From the Irish poc (“male adult goat, billy goat”). Doublet of buck.
noun pucks
- billy goat
puck⁴
- /pʌk/
- /pʊk/ Ireland, Northern England
Rhymes with -ʌk
Where it comes from
Blend of pike + tuck.
noun pucks
- A body position between the pike and tuck positions, with knees slightly bent and folded in; open tuck. The puck position is allowed during competitions when performing multi-twisting multiple somersaults.
Puck⁵
Where it comes from
From puck (“mischievous spirit”), from Middle English pouke, from Old English pūca (“goblin, demon”), from Proto-Germanic *pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pāug(')- (“brilliance, spectre”). Cognate with Icelandic púki, dialectal Swedish puke (“devil”), Middle Low German spūk (“apparition, ghost”), German Spuk (“a haunting”). More at spook.
proper noun
-
A mischievous sprite in Celtic mythology and English folklore.
Similar: Robin Goodfellow, puck
- One of the satellites of the planet Uranus.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: hockey puck, tricksy, slice, wafer, washer, disc, range, face, hockey, imp, puckster, puckle, ponk, puck bunny, puck-bunny, puckbunny
noun
Similar: goblin and fairy
Translations
Talk about this word "puck." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/puck. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. puck. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/puck "puck." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/puck.Cite this
@misc{puck_2026,
title = {puck},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/puck},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
