Word of the Day

: September 28, 2009

deke

verb DEEK

What It Means

: to fake (an opponent) out of position (as in ice hockey)

deke in Context

With a quick move to the left and then right, the forward deked the remaining defenseman and was left one-on-one with the goalie.

Did You Know?

"Deke" originated as a shortened form of "decoy." Ernest Hemingway used "deke" as a noun referring to hunting decoys in his 1950 novel Across the River and into the Trees ("I offered to put the dekes out with him"). About a decade later, "deke" began appearing in ice-hockey contexts in Canadian print sources as both a verb and a noun ("the act of faking an opponent out of position"). Today, "deke" has scored in many other sports, including baseball, basketball, and football. It has also checked its way into more general usage to refer to deceptive or evasive moves or actions. However, this general application of "deke" has never made it past the defenders. It occurs too rarely in English to merit its own sense in the dictionary.