Word.ws English Dictionary

kick the can

kick the can noun: a game played by children, similar to tag.

Noun

kick the can (uncountable)

  1. A game played by children, similar to tag.
    • Her house is […] in a middle-class neighborhood where kids would meet in the schoolyard on summer nights for kick the can, where Good Humor and doughnut truck men still come by.2003, Anne Lamott, Joe Jones, Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers,, →ISBN, page 188
    • "Did you ever play Kick the Can when you were a kid?"2005, Dee Henderson, The Protector, Tyndale House Publishers,, →ISBN, page 96

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.
What part of speech is kick the can?
Kick the can is a noun.

Words near kick the can in the dictionary

  1. kick starting
  2. kick starts
  3. kick tail
  4. kick the beam
  5. kick the bucket
  6. kick the can
  7. kick the can down the road
  8. kick the habit
  9. kick the shit out of
  10. kick the tires
  11. kick the tires and light the fires

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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