hocket ballot

[James Kushner]

Hello all!

Uh, yeah. You know how I said that the deadline was "whenever on
Friday morning I get around to sending the definitions to everyone"? I
seem to have a very liberal definition of "morning."

Anyway. Here are the choices for the word "hocket." Definitions have
been edited for formal consistency. The usual voting pattern applies:
one two-point vote, and one one-point vote. The deadline will be some
as-yet-unspecified time on Thursday, 18 August. However, if I receive
votes before then from all who submitted definitions, I will declare
the voting closed and tally things up immediately. (Attention lurkers:
vote early!)

--James

* * * * * * * * *

hocket, n.  a technique in medieval musical composition in which two
or three voice parts are given notes or short phrases in rapid
alternation, producing an erratic, hiccupping effect. [From Middle
French hocquet: hiccup, sudden interruption.]

hocket, n.  any notch, slot, or other affordance cut into a part to
accommodate the grip of a tool, especially if so cut during
maintenance or repair rather than manufacture; any mechanism
ill-designed for maintenance or repair.  -- v.  to cut a hocket; to
replace a mechanism rather than attempt repair. [Watchmaker's jargon.]

hocket, n.  a breed of horse, Arabian crossed with Morgan. [From
Auquette, the French breeder who developed the breed in 1879.]

hocket, n.  the gate on a stile.

hocket, n.  the device on the end of a railroad car which connects it
to the next car.

hocket, n.  the O-ring on a horse's or mule's harness that connects
straps leading to the rump, to the shoulders, and to the plow. Often,
the straps to the plow drag at hock level, thus the name. [From an
Amish farming publication for tourists.]

hocket, n.  1. punishment ritual of the Abenaki. Fr. Campion describes
a gathering on an ice-covered lake, where the criminal is slashed with
sharp branches by the assembled crowd from sunrise to sunset; in the
northern winter, this was a short enough period of time that the
malefactor, if sufficiently strong, might hope to survive. 2. the
original Quebecois stick-and-puck game, from which the English
"hockey." [French, from Abenaki.]

hocket, adv.  toward the enemy prior to noon.  [See also mackent,
trettal, remsyl.]

hocket, n.  an undetected misdeed; something one has gotten away with.