Conker: from snail shells to horse chestnuts

As autumn arrives the game of conkers returns, with glossy horse chestnuts threaded on string. The word itself, though, is not nearly as old as the trees. In the 1840s children on the Isle of Wight used snail shells in the same game, calling them ‘conkers’ from the verb ‘conquer’. By the 1850s the tougher horse chestnut seed had taken over, and the name shifted with it. Across Europe the seed is simply called a horse chestnut or an Indian chestnut, but in English the playground slang has stuck.