Brewer's: Mall

or Pall Mall (London). From the Latin pellere mallco (to strike with a mallet or bat; so called because it was where the ancient game of pell-mall used to be played. Cotgrave says:

“Pale malle is a game wherein a round boxball is struck with a mallet through a high arch of iron. He that can do this most frequently wins.”

It was a fashionable game in the reign of Charles II., and the walk called the Mall was appropriated to it for the king and his court.

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