BADMINTON

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Badminton is a played using  hit  across a. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players per side). Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a or on a ; professional games are played on a rectangular indoor court. Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the other team's half of the court, within the set boundaries.

Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or ground, or if a fault has been called by the, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side.                                                          ^[1]Games employing  have been played for centuries across but the modern game of badminton developed in the mid-19th century among the expatriate officers of  as a variant of the earlier game of . ("Battledore" was an older term for "racquet".)^[4] Its exact origin remains obscure. The name derives from the D,^[5] but why or when remains unclear.^{[citation needed]} As early as 1860, a London toy dealer named Isaac Spratt published a booklet entitled Badminton Battledore – A New Game, but no copy is known to have survived.^[6] An 1863 article in The Cornhill Magazine describes badminton as "battledore and shuttlecock played with sides, across a string suspended some five feet from the ground".^[7]

The game originally developed in India among the British expatriates,^[8] where it was very popular by the 1870s.^[6] Ball badminton, a form of the game played with a wool ball instead of a shuttlecock, was being played in Thanjavur as early as the 1850s^[9] and was at first played interchangeably with badminton by the British, the woollen ball being preferred in windy or wet weather.

Early on, the game was also known as Poona or Poonah after the garrison town of Poona (Pune),^[8][10] where it was particularly popular and where the first rules for the game were drawn up in 1873.^[6][7][b] By 1875, officers returning home had started a badminton club in Folkestone. Initially, the sport was played with sides ranging from 1 to 4 players, but it was quickly established that games between two or four competitors worked the best.^[4] The shuttlecocks were coated with India rubber and, in outdoor play, sometimes weighted with lead.^[4] Although the depth of the net was of no consequence, it was preferred that it should reach the ground.^[4]