kayles
kayles noun: the game of skittles or ninepins. Also the plural of kayle.
Noun
kayles (uncountable)
- The game of skittles or ninepins.
- Playing kayles, i.e. throwing a stick at ninepins, at Smithfield, 13th century.1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 239
- A simple impartial game in combinatorial game theory, in which players take turns to knock out one pin or two adjacent pins from a line of imagined bowling pins.
Also used as
kayles is also the plural of kayle.
Forms of kayles
| alternative form | kails |
|---|
Origin of kayles
From Middle English keyles, plural of Middle English keyle (see Dutch kegel, German Kegel, Danish kegle, and Swedish kegla).
Words that rhyme with kayles
Questions about kayles
- What does kayles mean?
- Kayles means the game of skittles or ninepins.
- What part of speech is kayles?
- Kayles is a noun.
Words near kayles in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kayles (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “kayles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kayles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.