Whenever I see the word croquet, the first thing I think of is the scene in the Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland where Alice plays croquet using flamingo as the mallets.  

I also remember playing croquet as a kid, but the yard we played on had a rather substantive slope to it, which made playing tricky.  

The word croquet comes from Northern France from the word crochet, meaning 'little crook' or 'hooked stick'. 

Croquet was first played in France in the 11th century, although it was called 'jeu de mail'.  It was 'borrowed' by the Brits in the 13th century, and then the Scots turned the concept into the game of golf, while the Irish turned it into croquet. 

Some Americans play a game called 'Nine Wicket' or when played on a distort course it's called 'Extreme Croquet'. 

I'm still trying to figure out what the meme that @Myr used with this Word of the Day has to do with croquet, other than the guy having a psychotic break throws a croquet stake into the ground and there are croquet mallets lying nearby.  

Encouraging Rednecks to play croquet is courting disaster. Just imagine a bunch of big, drunk good ole boys with mallets and the one called Cletus says, hey Skeeter. Hold my beer and watch this.

1 hour ago, JamesSavik said:

Encouraging Rednecks to play croquet is courting disaster. Just imagine a bunch of big, drunk good ole boys with mallets and the one called Cletus says, hey Skeeter. Hold my beer and watch this.

Thinking of rednecks with mallets is bad enough, but them having mallets and croquet stakes is even worse.  The might go vampire hunting and anyone is fair game! They get to decide who's a vampire and who isn't.