Word.ws English Dictionary

kick-the-can

kick-the-can noun: a game played by children, similar to tag, where tagged players are freed if an untagged player manages to kick over a discarded tin can etc. set up for this purpose.

Noun

kick-the-can (uncountable)

  1. A game played by children, similar to tag, where tagged players are freed if an untagged player manages to kick over a discarded tin can etc. set up for this purpose.
    • Each syllable, screamed by a hysteric caller in the world's last round of kick-the-can.1994, Richard Powers, Operation Wandering Soul, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 232
    • And because few families could afford cars anymore, the alley was a safe place to play Captain-May-I?, kick-the-can, and bounce-out.2003, Dorothy Lilja Harrison, A Better Tomorrow?, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 70

Forms of kick-the-can

alternative formkick the can

Questions about kick-the-can

What does kick-the-can mean?
Kick-the-can means a game played by children, similar to tag, where tagged players are freed if an untagged player manages to kick over a discarded tin can etc. set up for this purpose.
What part of speech is kick-the-can?
Kick-the-can is a noun.

Words near kick-the-can in the dictionary

  1. kick-starts
  2. kick-step
  3. kick-stepped
  4. kick-stepping
  5. kick-steps
  6. kick-the-can
  7. kick-to-kick
  8. kick-to-kicks
  9. Kickabil
  10. kickability
  11. kickable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kick-the-can (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.

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