What Does Rain Check Mean

English [edit]

Alternative forms [edit]

raincheck, rain-check, raincheque, pelting cheque, rain-cheque

Etymology [edit]

1877 Usa in baseball game;^[1] metaphorical usage from 1896, more mostly from 1930.^[2] Since at least 1870, baseball teams would reissue tickets in case of postponement due to rain, which became known as rain checks.

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

rain cheque (plural pelting checks)

Rain check at CVS, shown below the empty shelf for the sold-out item

( idiomatic ) Any voucher or notation from a merchant to a customer to provide an item the merchant has run out of at a later date for the item'south current cost, or (in a more literal sense) to provide a service at a later date.
- 1877, Chicago Times, July viii, 1877:^[1]
  
  The St. Louis guild is the only nine in the league which gives its patrons the correct to see a total game or no pay. In Chicago and other cities, afterward the beginning inning is interrupted past rain the spectators are supposed to have received their coin's worth. In St. Louis 'rain checks' are issued in such cases.
- 1896, Caduceus of Kappa Sigma, volume xi, p. 305
  
  [Regarding visiting the Indianapolis, Indiana chapter of the fraternity Kappa Sigma] … if in any respect the affair does non adapt you—phone call at the box office and you lot'll get your money dorsum or get a rain bank check, simply as you lot please.
( idiomatic ) In social interactions, a polite mode to plow down an invitation, with the implication one is simply postponing it and that another time would exist adequate.

I can't become with you to the museum this Saturday, but tin can I take a pelting check and go some other 24-hour interval?

Translations [edit]

any postponement, peculiarly of an offer

References [edit]

↑ ^ane.0 ^ane.one Peter Morris, A Game of Inches: The Stories Behind the Innovations That Shaped Baseball, 15.ane.3 Rain Checks, pp. 411–412
^ "rain check", in The Oxford English Lexicon, second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Printing, 1989, →ISBN.