Kubb

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A team game played on grass in which players throw batons to knock down wooden blocks set up at each end of a field ; the wooden blocks themselves that are knocked over and stacked during play
2. An outdoor throwing game of Scandinavian origin where teams aim sticks at upright timber pieces ; the small wooden pegs or blocks that are the targets in that game
3. A lawn sport in which players hurl wooden batons to topple standing targets on a pitch ; the squat wooden targets that are set up and struck during the match

Etymology: Kubb is a Swedish lawn game in which two teams throw wooden batons at wooden blocks, and the name comes from the Swedish "kubb," meaning "block" or "log." That is the whole of the word's history that can be stated with confidence, so the rest of this account is about the game rather than the etymology. The word is a plain Swedish noun for a chunk of wood, and it was applied to the game's central target pieces because they are cut from wooden blocks. Its English use is recent, dating from the game's spread outside Scandinavia, and English speakers mostly know it as the name of the sport rather than as an ordinary word for a block of timber.