spillikins

• Spillikins, spellicans

spillikins

1. plural of spillikin

spillikins (uncountable)

1. A game in which players attempt to remove flat, carved sticks of ivory or wood (the individual spillikins of meaning 1) from a scattered pile without disturbing any stick other than the one currently being removed.

   Spillikins is a game of skill.

   Charlie loves playing spillikins.

   • 1807, Jane Austen, Letters (1796-1817), letter to her sister Cassandra, February 8, 1807:

     Our little visitor has just left us [...].–Half her time here was spent at Spillikins; which I consider as a very valuable part of our Household furniture, & as not the least important Benefaction– from the family of Knight to that of Austen.

   • 1969, Penelope Farmer, Charlotte Sometimes, London: Vintage Books, published 2013, →ISBN:

     But she was much too impatient to be good at spillikins, moving them too fast, not wheedling them out by delicate degrees. (page 109)
     After the news of Bunty’s father, Emily became increasingly quiet and withdrawn. [...] Her homework done, she sat playing endless solitary games – of patience or spillikins or draughts. (page 158)

   • 2013 August 16, Laura Boyle, “Spillikins”, in Jane Austen .co.uk, retrieved 27 May 2015:

     Spillikins is played the same way that early versions of Jack Straw and the American “pick up sticks” are.

• pick-up sticks
• game of skill, tabletop game