Editing Conkers (section)

==Origin==
[[File:Aesculus hippocastanum fruit.jpg|thumb|right|A selection of fresh conkers from a [[horse chestnut]] tree]]
The first mention of the game is in [[Robert Southey]]'s memoirs published in 1821.  He describes a similar game, but played with snail shells or [[hazelnut]]s.  It was only from the 1850s that using horse chestnuts was regularly referred to in certain regions.<ref name="Vamplew2005">{{cite book|author=Wray Vamplew|title=Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWu6sLJn7-kC&pg=PA75|year= 2005|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-35224-6|pages=75–}}</ref>

There is uncertainty of the origins of the name.  The name may come from the dialect word ''conker'', meaning "knock out" (perhaps related to French ''conque'' meaning a [[conch]], as the game was originally played using [[snail]] shells and small bits of string<ref name="Hendrickson1993">{{cite book|author=Robert Hendrickson|title=Ladybugs, tiger lilies, and wallflowers|url=https://archive.org/details/ladybugstigerlil00hend|url-access=registration|year=1993|publisher=Prentice Hall General Reference|isbn=978-0-671-79910-6}}</ref><ref name="Gomme1894">{{cite book|author=Alice Bertha Gomme|title=The traditional games of England, Scotland, and Ireland: with tunes, singing-rhymes, and methods of playing according to the variants extant and recorded in different parts of the Kingdom|url=https://archive.org/details/traditionalgame01gommgoog|year=1894|publisher=D. Nutt|pages=[https://archive.org/details/traditionalgame01gommgoog/page/n105 77]–}} refers to Conkers as "the same game as Cogger" and states that it is more generally known as "plying with a hard nut".</ref>). The name may also be influenced by the verb ''conquer'', as earlier games involving shells and hazelnuts have also been called ''conquerors''.<ref name="Hendrickson1993" /> Compton MacKenzie's 1913 novel Sinister Street uses the name Conquerors.<ref>{{cite book|year=1913|author=Compton MacKenzie|title=Sinister Street, volume 1}}</ref>

Another possibility is that it is an [[onomatopoeia]], representing the sound made by a horse chestnut as it hits another hard object, such as a skull{{cn|date=October 2024}} (another children's "game", also called conkers, consists of simply throwing the seeds at one another over a fence or wall).{{cn|date=October 2024}} Conkers are also known regionally{{where|date=October 2024}} as ''cheesers'',{{cn|date=October 2024}} a "cheeser" being a conker with one or more flat sides, which comes about due to it sharing its pod with other conkers (twins or triplets). Also ''Cheggers'' was used in Lancaster, England in the 1920s.{{cn|date=October 2024}}  In [[D. H. Lawrence]]'s book ''[[Sons and Lovers]]'', the game is referred to as ''cobblers'' by William Morel.