Croquet is a game played on grass. Players hit coloured balls with a wooden mallet (a long-handled hammer) and try to send each ball under curved wires called hoops, in the right order, then hit a peg at the end. It looks gentle and polite, the sort of summer-lawn game you see with tea — though actually players can be quite fierce, knocking other people’s balls away on purpose. That knock is part of the game. In many English-speaking places it still feels a little old and posh, even when ordinary families play it in the garden. The same word can be a verb: to croquet someone’s ball is to send it away with yours.