# Croquet - French translation of the original name **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2023, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432 "2023-01-18T22:23:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/1 "2023-01-18T22:23:07Z")
I’ve developed a fascination with croquet, of late. And reading all the articles I can get my hands on, I repeatedly come across this fact: “Poor people in the southern part of France played an outdoor game that involved using mallets or sticks to knock balls through hoops in order to hit a peg on the other side. _The game was called “paille maille,” which means “ball and mallet” in English._” After reading that for the umpteenth time, and just for giggles, I ran it through a couple of online translators which returned the results as “straw mesh”. Wikipedia offers this: > [@](#): > > The name comes from the [Italian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language) _[pallamaglio](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pallamaglio#Italian)_ , which literally means ‘[ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball) [mallet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallet)’, ultimately derived from [Latin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language) _[palla](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/palla#Latin)_ , meaning ‘ball’, and _[malleus](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malleus#Latin)_ meaning ‘[maul](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_maul), [hammer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer), or mallet’ However, translating that returns, “handball”. Nothing about mallets. I realize that language has changed a lot since the 13th century but I have a suspicion that paille maille = ball and mallet is just repeating earlier articles. I have no dire need to know but I am curious… Any French dopers or speakers that can help clarify? ETA: Factual question - Does the French ‘paille maille’ mean ball and mallet in English? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/2 "2023-01-18T22:46:35Z")
According to the [French Wikipedia](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeu_de_mail) paille maille does mean ball and mallet: > Le mot _mail_ vient du latin _malleus_, en français, maillet. Il est aussi appelé _pail-mail_ ou _pale-mail_, de _pila_, boule, et _mail_, maillet. > The word _mail_ stems from the Latin _malleus_, in English, mallet (a hammer with a barrel shaped head). The game is also called _pail-mail_ or _pale-mail_, from _pila_, ball, and _mail_, mallet. It sounds credible to me. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/3 "2023-01-18T23:16:37Z")
Maybe it’s an issue with translators. According to Google translate (French) “Mail” doesn’t translate to mallet either, though googling “malleus Latin translation” does return hammer/mallet. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/4 "2023-01-18T23:20:11Z")
Mail is ancient French, the modern word is [maillet](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillet_(outil)). ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/5 "2023-01-19T02:12:04Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Factual question - Does the French ‘paille maille’ mean ball and mallet in English? Not an answer to your question, I’m afraid, but your OP led me to wonder whether ‘paille maille’ was related to ‘pell-mell’. Apparently it’s not, though ‘pell-mell’ does have French etymology. > ## [ORIGIN OF PELL-MELL](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/pell-mell) > > First recorded in 1570–80; from Middle French pelemele, Old French pesle mesle, rhyming compound based on mesler “to mix”; see [meddle](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/meddle) ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/6 "2023-01-19T14:50:49Z")
Note that the word “pelote” means “ball” (among other things) in modern French from the same Latin root “pila”. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/7 "2023-01-19T18:09:42Z")
Just throwing in the fun etymological fact that the (parallel) central London streets Pall Mall and The Mall take their names from the game, which used to be played there. And from there, the term “mall” as a name for a tree-lined promenade entered the English language, as exemplified, among others, by the National Mall in Washington. And from there, the word acquired its new meaning of shopping centre. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/8 "2023-01-19T19:42:46Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Not an answer to your question, I’m afraid, but your OP led me to wonder whether ‘paille maille’ was related to ‘pell-mell’. Interestingly, I have read a couple of croquet articles that claimed they were related. Not that I’m trying to hold fluff piece writers to high journalistic standards, but it they aren’t related, that’s pretty lazy research. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/9 "2023-01-19T19:54:43Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Mail is ancient French, the modern word is [maillet](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillet_(outil)). So, the modern French (and English cognate) are diminutives? Any idea how that happened? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2023, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/10 "2023-01-19T20:56:08Z")
I am not sure it is a diminutive, my French is not good enough to settle that. By instinct I would have said that the diminutive of _maille_ is _maillette_. But that sounds female… but come to think of it, so does _maille_. And _mail_ (but is it?). Hm. Sorry, don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2023, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/11 "2023-01-20T21:39:18Z")
Yes. See the [article](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/maillet) in French Wiktionary, with a reference to the masculine diminutive suffix _-et_. The [article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallet) on English Wikipedia points out that the defining criterion of a mallet is not the material it is made of, but that it is smaller than a maul. My hunch is that the undiminished root might signify a hammer that’s used with both hands, whereas a hammer held in one hand only takes the diminutive form. That’s confusing with croquet, where the mallet is usually played with both hands, but I suppose that there was an additional stage in the etymology of the croquet mallet, which was named after its resemblance to a small wooden single-hand hammer rather than a big massive sledgehammer-type tool. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/12 "2023-01-21T09:46:17Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Note that the word “pelote” means “ball” (among other things) in modern French from the same Latin root “pila”. In modern French, the only common use of the word _pelote_ is in the very specific sense of “ball of (usually wool) yarn”. ---
**Author:** ![Themenin0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@Themenin0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin0)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/13 "2023-01-21T15:53:45Z")
This is the main usage, but ‘pelote’ is also the ball use in ‘pelote basque’ (jai alai) and the verb ‘peloter’ is a negative term meaning something like ‘fiddle’ or ‘fondle’. I’m a little more mystified about how ‘paille maille’ became ‘croquet’, which is clearly a French word but is food related - ‘croque’ means ‘bite’. I’m guessing that ‘cricket’ (game) somehow ties in here too ? ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/14 "2023-01-21T18:26:01Z")
> [@Themenin0](#): > > This is the main usage, but ‘pelote’ is also the ball use in ‘pelote basque’ (jai alai) True, but that’s a very niche use based, I suspect, on a dialect. > [@Themenin0](#): > > …and the verb ‘peloter’ is a negative term meaning something like ‘fiddle’ or ‘fondle’. Also true, but the relationship to a ball is real but indirect. ---
**Author:** ![Themenin0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@Themenin0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin0)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/15 "2023-01-21T18:39:47Z")
True (archaic rather than dialect I think) - and these do seem to be the only words where French hasn’t gone with ‘ball’ instead of ‘pel’/‘pal’. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2023, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/16 "2023-01-21T19:48:25Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > but I have a suspicion that paille maille = ball and mallet is just repeating earlier articles Like this? 🙂 > **[Citogenesis](https://xkcd.com/978/)** > > I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/17 "2023-01-23T17:09:03Z")
> [@Themenin0](#): > > I’m guessing that ‘cricket’ (game) somehow ties in here too ? Cricket and Croquet seem suspiciously similar - especially since they are both ball/stick games - just a guess though. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Like this? Exactly like that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2023, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/18 "2023-01-25T20:03:32Z")
They’re related. Both mean ‘a small crook’ i.e. a shepherd’s staff, which is crooked at the end. Croquet from Norman French and cricket from Dutch krik, meaning the same thing. Even though the cricket bat is straightened out now. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/19 "2023-01-26T21:25:49Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > “malleus Latin translation” does return hammer/mallet As in the title of the notorious book [“Malleus Maleficarum”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum) which is translated as “The Hammer of Witches” ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432/20 "2023-01-26T21:33:31Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > They’re related. And also related to the modern French “crochet” meaning hook, and to the English word “crook” that you mentioned in your reply. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/croquet-french-translation-of-the-original-name/978432.md?page=2)