Meaning & use
cricket
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A small brown or black jumping insect; the male makes a loud chirping sound by rubbing its wings together.
Grammar: Countable: one cricket, two crickets. Use 'a' or 'the' when talking about a particular insect.
Patterns
- a cricket chirping
- the sound of crickets
Crickets chirped all night outside our tent.
A cricket jumped onto the kitchen floor.
The only sound was the chirping of crickets.
noununcountable
A game played by two teams of eleven players who score runs by hitting a ball with a bat and running between two sets of wooden stumps.
Grammar: Uncountable when referring to the sport: play cricket, not 'play a cricket'. But a cricket match is countable.
Patterns
- play cricket
- a cricket match
- cricket team
They play cricket every Saturday in the park.
India and Australia are strong cricket nations.
We watched a cricket match on television.
Word forms
| plural | crickets |
|---|
Common combinations
- cricket bat
- He bought a new cricket bat for the season.
- cricket ball
- The cricket ball is hard and red.
- cricket ground
- The cricket ground was full of fans.
- not cricket
- Cheating in the game is just not cricket.
Commonly confused: cricket or croquet?
cricket vs croquet
Croquet is a different game played on grass with mallets and balls, not bats and wickets.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'cricket' correctly?
Choose one answer.
The insect sense is countable, so 'a cricket' is correct. For the sport, we say 'play cricket' without 'a', and we watch it on television, not on the radio.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cricket”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.