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Sports & Games
38 entries in this part of the language, each with meanings, pronunciation and worked examples.
- Bat an ball Improvised street, yard, or beach cricket — a casual game got up with a homemade bat (often…
- Bones The domino tiles — 'the bones', slapped down hard on the table in dominoes, the beloved…
- Brown girl in the ring A classic Caribbean ring game and singing game in which children join hands in a circle…
- Cash Pot A hugely popular Jamaican numbers lottery in which you bet on a number from 1 to 36, each…
- Champs The ISSA Boys' and Girls' Athletics Championships — the annual national high-school…
- China skip A children's jumping game played with a long loop of joined elastic (or rubber bands)…
- Chinese skip A schoolyard jumping game, mostly for girls, played with a long loop of joined elastic…
- Cricket The bat-and-ball sport that Jamaicans follow with deep passion — played for the West Indies…
- Cyattie A slingshot — a forked stick strung with a rubber band, made and used above all by boys to…
- Dandy shandy A traditional Jamaican children's street game like dodgeball, played with a ball made from…
- Domino The game of dominoes — Jamaica's favourite pastime, played fast and loud on any table, at…
- Dominoes The tile game that is a national pastime in Jamaica — played fast and loud, with the…
- Draughts The board game of draughts (checkers) — played on the same squared board as chess, with…
- Drop-pan A traditional Jamaican numbers gambling game in which players stake money on numbers from 1…
- Football match A football (soccer) match — the game Jamaicans follow with passion, from Premier League and…
- Gig A spinning top — a hand-carved or bought wooden top that children spin by winding and…
- Gig A spinning top — a wooden top wound with string and thrown down to spin, the classic…
- Goggle A diving mask used for spearfishing and free-diving on the reef — often, in the old days…
- Hopscotch A children's hopping game played on a grid of squares chalked or scratched on the ground: a…
- Kite A kite — and, in Jamaica, a cherished Easter tradition.
- Kite flying The Easter pastime of flying home-made kites in the breezy spring skies — a beloved…
- Ludo The dice-and-counters board game hugely popular in Jamaican homes — players race their four…
- Marble The children's game of marbles — glass balls that players 'pitch' (flick or roll) to hit an…
- Moonshine darlin An old-time moonlit children's pastime and its song.
- Moonshine darling An old Jamaican moonlight ring game in which children lay a friend down and trace the…
- Netball The seven-a-side ball game — cousin to basketball but with no backboard and no running with…
- Partner domino The pairs form of dominoes — four players in two teams of two, partners sitting opposite…
- Police an thief A children's chasing game — the Jamaican cops-and-robbers — where one group are the…
- Ref A referee — the official who governs football and other sports, and, more loosely, anyone…
- Ring game A traditional children's game played in a circle ('ring') with singing and actions — the…
- Six love A total whitewash in dominoes — winning all six games of a set while the other pair scores…
- Skipping Jumping rope — a favourite girls' playground game where two turn a long rope while others…
- Snakes and ladders Snakes and Ladders — the classic board game of luck, where a roll sends your piece up a…
- Sprinter A short-distance runner — a source of enormous national pride, for tiny Jamaica is the…
- Strika A striker — the goal-scoring forward in football (soccer), a sport followed with passion in…
- Stucky A children's chasing game, a form of freeze tag: whoever is 'it' chases the others, and…
- Swimma A swimmer — the Patois pronunciation of 'swimmer', with the everyday r-to-a shift (as in…
- Track and field Athletics — running, jumping, and throwing events — the sport in which tiny Jamaica has…