Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A game in which players toss rings of metal, rope, or rubber at a stake, trying to get each ring to land with the stake through its center or close to the stake.
  • noun One of the rings used in this game.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To throw as a quoit; throw.
  • To throw quoits; play at quoits.
  • noun A flattish ring of iron, used in playing a kind of game.
  • noun plural The game played with such rings.
  • noun A quoit-shaped implement used as a weapon of war; a discus.
  • noun In archaeology, same as dolmen.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Obs. or R. To throw; to pitch.
  • intransitive verb To throw quoits; to play at quoits.
  • noun A flattened ring-shaped piece of iron, to be pitched at a fixed object in play; hence, any heavy flat missile used for the same purpose, as a stone, piece of iron, etc.
  • noun A game played with quoits.
  • noun The discus of the ancients. See Discus.
  • noun Prov. Eng. A cromlech.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a flat disc of metal or stone thrown at a target in the game of quoits
  • noun a ring of rubber or rope similarly used in the game of deck-quoits
  • noun the flat stone covering a cromlech
  • verb To play at quoits.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun game equipment consisting of a ring of iron or circle of rope used in playing the game of quoits

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English coyte, flat stone, quoit, from Old French coilte, coite, from Latin culcita, cushion.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English coyte ("flat stone"), from Old French coite, from Latin culcita.

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Examples

  • This was why: Before Sabol left, the two played a backyard game called quoit, similar to horseshoes.

    Freep.com - RSS 2008

  • Olympic truce; and among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of

    Plutarch's Lives, Volume I 46-120? Plutarch 1839

  • The Discus was a kind of quoit of a round form, made sometimes of wood, but more frequently of stone, lead, or other metal; as iron or brass.

    The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians and Grecians (Vol. 1 of 6) Charles Rollin 1701

  • His one hand slipped into his pocket and clutched the quoit.

    THE PRINCESS 2010

  • The one hand of Bruce Cadogan Cavendish flashed pocketward and flashed back with the quoit balanced ripe for business.

    THE PRINCESS 2010

  • The talon emerged, clutching ready for action a six-pound iron quoit.

    THE PRINCESS 2010

  • Simultaneously Slim reached for his quoit, and Whiskers and Fatty for their rocks.

    THE PRINCESS 2010

  • Bruce Cadogan Cavendish pulled forth his iron quoit and seemed to debate whether or not he should brain the other.

    THE PRINCESS 2010

  • And the Colchians gave a loud cry, like the roar of the sea when it beats upon sharp crags; and speechless amazement seized Aeetes at the rush of the sturdy quoit.

    The Argonautica 2008

  • But Jason bethought him of the counsels of Medea full of craft, and seized from the plain a huge round boulder, a terrible quoit of Ares

    The Argonautica 2008

Comments

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  • "(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)"

    Joyce, Ulysses, 15

    February 8, 2007

  • "The discobolus, she continued, who presently appeared on the anxious trot to ask the bloody impressionist and the screaming Madame Monet if they had seen his quoit was a bassetted and spatted Englishman whose carp's mouth and plaid knickerbockers sprang from the pages of Jerome K. Jerome."

    --Guy Davenport in "A Field of Snow on a Slope of the Rosenberg"

    January 19, 2010