▪ I. † fives1 Obs.
= avives.
| 1596 Shakes. Tam. Shr. iii. ii. 54 His horse..past cure of the Fiues. 1639 T. de la Grey Compl. Horsem. 79 This terme Avives we have also gotten from the French..secundum vulgus, it is called the Fives or Vives. |
▪ II. fives2
(faɪvz)
[pl. of five n., used as sing.
The reason for the name is obscure. The conjecture that the game may originally have been played by five persons on each side appears to be unsupported by evidence; the 16th. c. game of bord-and-cord (see quot. s.v.) is stated to have been on one occasion played ‘five against five’; but the two games had apparently nothing in common except that they were games of ball played with the hands. The slang use of fives for the hand (see five B 3 b) has not been found until long after the appearance of the name of the game; otherwise it would afford a plausible explanation: cf. Fr. jeu de paume, which originally denoted hand-tennis, though afterwards transferred to the later tennis played with rackets. The statement common in Dicts., that the name was given ‘because three fives, or fifteen, are counted to the game’, is unsatisfactory: the number of ‘points’ in the Eton game is 15, but they are not divided into groups of five, and in other varieties there are 11, 20, or 25 points.]
1. A game in which a ball is struck by the hand against the front wall of a three-sided court. A variety of the game, in which a wooden bat is used, is called bat-fives.
| 1636 Div. Trag. lately acted 8 He had a purpose..to goe on the Lords day..to play at a sport, called fiues. 1726 Amherst Terræ Fil. xxxiv. (1741) 179 The old ball-court, where I have had many a game at fives. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. ii. iii. 88 Hand-tennis..is now called fives. 1862 H. Kingsley Ravenshoe xxxv, The little man was playing at fives against the bare wall. |
2. attrib. and Comb., as fives-ball, fives-bat, fives-player; fives-court, a prepared court where the game of fives is played; also collect. for the persons who frequent a fives-court.
| 1825 in Hone Every Day Bk. I. 863 I made the first *fives-ball. |
| 1857 Hughes Tom Brown i. ix. (1871) 184 A favourite old *fives-bat. |
| 1822 Hazlitt Table-t. I. ix. 205 Cavanagh was the admiration of all the *fives-courts. |
| 1819 Sporting Mag. III. 210 Cavanagh, the famous hand *fives-player. |