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to have a sticky wicket

 - 2 dictionary results

wick⋅et

[wik-it]
–noun
1. a window or opening, often closed by a grating or the like, as in a door, or forming a place of communication in a ticket office, a teller's cage in a bank, etc.
2. Croquet. a hoop or arch.
3. a turnstile in an entrance.
4. a small door or gate, esp. one beside, or forming part of, a larger one.
5. a small gate by which a canal lock is emptied.
6. a gate by which a flow of water is regulated, as to a waterwheel.
7. Cricket.
a. either of the two frameworks, each consisting of three stumps with two bails in grooves across the tops, at which the bowler aims the ball.
b. the area between the wickets; the playing field.
c. one batsman's turn at the wicket.
d. the period during which two players bat together.
e. a batsman's inning that is not completed or not begun.
8. to be on, have, or bat a sticky wicket, British Slang. to be at or have a disadvantage.

Origin:
1200–50; ME wiket < AF; OF guischet < Gmc; cf. MD wiket wicket, equiv. to wik- (akin to OE wīcan to yield; see weak ) + -et n. suffix
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Word Origin & History

wicket 
c.1225, "small door or gate," from Anglo-Fr. wiket, from O.N.Fr. wiket (Fr. guichet) "wicket, wicket gate," probably from P.Gmc. *wik- (cf. O.N. vik "nook") related to O.E. wican "to give way, yield" (see weak). The notion is of "something that turns." Cricket sense of "set of three sticks defended by the batsman" is recorded from 1733.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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