battledore

1 a light long-handled racket used by badminton players [syn: badminton racket, badminton racquet]

2 an ancient racket game [syn: battledore and shuttlecock]

English

Noun

1. A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets (properly battledore and shuttlecock); a forerunner of badminton
2. The racket used in this game

Battledore and Shuttlecock or Jeu de Volantis is an early game similar to that of modern Badminton.

This game is played by two persons with small rackets, called battledores, made of parchment or rows of gut stretched across wooden frames, and shuttlecocks, made of a base of some light material, like cork, with trimmed feathers fixed round the top.

The object of the players is to bat the shuttlecock from one to the other as many times as possible without allowing it to fall to the ground.

Games with a shuttlecock are believed to have originated in ancient Greece about 2000 years ago. From there they spread via the Indo-Greek kingdoms to India and then further east to China and Siam.

There are Greek drawings extant representing a game almost identical with battledore and shuttlecock, and it has been popular in India, China, Japan, and Siam for at least 2000 years. In Europe it has been played by children for centuries. A further development is Badminton.

Notes

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