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PlainSpell

hopscotch

/ˈhɑpˌskɑt͡ʃ/noun, verb

hopscotch is a noun meaning “A child's game, in which a player, hopping on one foot, drives a stone from one compartment to another of a figure traced or scotched on the ground” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-P-S-C-O-T-C-H and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does hopscotch mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A child's game, in which a player, hopping on one foot, drives a stone from one compartment to another of a figure traced or scotched on the ground.

verb

  1. 1

    To move by hopping.

  2. 2

    To move back and forth between adjacent patterns by or as if by hopping.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce hopscotch?

  • US /ˈhɑpˌskɑt͡ʃ/
  • UK /ˈhɒpˌskɒt͡ʃ/

Hopscotch has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hopscotch.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of hopscotch

  • hopscotches present, singular, he/she/it
  • hopscotching participle, present
  • hopscotched participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is hopscotch?

Hopscotch appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 60,838th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Hopscotch in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense child's game:

LanguageWords
Frenchmarelle
GermanHickelkasten, Hüpfspiel, Paradiesspiel, Himmel und Hölle, Tempelhüpfen, Hinkelspiel
Portugueseamarelinha, macaca
Spanishavión, rayuela, bebelechi, luche, peregrina, infernáculo

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hopscotch come from?

From hop + scotch (“scratch”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).