Hopscotch

Hopscotch \HOP-skoch\
verb;
1. To journey quickly and directly from one usually far place to another
2. To move or pass through something, as a geographical area or a field of endeavor, making many brief stops
noun;
1. A children's game in which a player tosses or kicks an object into one of several numbered sections of a diagram marked on the ground.

Hopscotch is a game that always confused me as a kid. On tv it's usually in those scenes of idyllic childhood flashbacks, conveying the idea that it's the ultimate childhood game (for girls anyway). Watching this always made me feel like I should play it too because apparently everyone has fond memories of the game. However, I always found it to incredibly boring. I'd rather dig in the dirt! Writing this I thought maybe I didn't know the right rules, but I just looked it up and I knew exactly how to play...it's really just not that fun.

The Oxford English Dictionary does not include any definition of hopscotch other than the children's game, so I'm not sure about those verb definitions. The word seems to have originated in the late 1700's and it's etymology is very simple: in the game you hop over a scotch (an incised line or scratch), thus hopscotch. Other variations are hop-score, hop-scot, and scotch-hoppers.

*Today's word and the first definition were both taken from Dictionary.com's 'Word of the Day' for Thursday, October 14