ricochet

Borrowed from French ricochet, of uncertain origin.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɪk.ə.ʃeɪ/, /ˈɹɪk.ə.ʃɛt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -eɪ, -ɛt
• Hyphenation: ric‧o‧chet

ricochet (plural ricochets)

1. (military) A method of firing a projectile so that it skips along a surface.
2. An instance of ricocheting; a glancing rebound.
   • 1970, “Child in Time”, in Deep Purple in Rock, performed by Deep Purple:

     And you've not been hit / By flying lead / You'd better close your eyes / Bow your head / Wait for the ricochet

ricochet (third-person singular simple present ricochets, present participle ricocheting or ricochetting, simple past and past participle ricocheted or ricochetted)

1. To rebound off something wildly in a seemingly random direction.
   • #*
     2018 June 24, Sam Wallace, “Harry Kane scores hat-trick as England hit Panama for six to secure World Cup knock-out qualification”, in Telegraph (UK):

     Everything that could go right for England did although they never felt lucky and they chuckled at Kane’s third that ricocheted off his heel while he was looking the other way.

2. (military) To operate upon by ricochet firing.

• ricochet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Uncertain. The word first appears in the phrases chanson du/de riochet, fable du ricochet. This is apparently related to other story-titles such as the fable du rouge kokelet; other dialectal terms such as ripoton (“duckling”) and Norman recoquet (“chick”) has led to theories that the word originally indicated a "young cock". The sense-development is unclear.

• IPA^(key): /ʁi.kɔ.ʃɛ/

ricochet m (plural ricochets)

1. rebound; ricochet
2. (games) ducks and drakes

• “ricochet”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.