Curling Terminology: The Complete Glossary

Why does curling vocabulary sound so foreign?

Because most of it is Scots, and most of the rest describes something you have already seen.

Curling was written down in Renfrewshire and Perthshire in the 16th century, and the language of those parishes at the time was Scots. Bonspiel, spiel, besom, the roaring game, even the sport’s own name: all Scots, most older than Shakespeare. There is a longer treatment of the sport’s Olympic history if you want the century-by-century route. Everything else is a physical description of what you can point at on the ice. The house has walls of concentric circles. The hammer is the last one you get to swing.

None of it is trying to be clever. It just froze in place while the game moved indoors. The 2 million UK readers who piled into a single BBC Sport rules explainer during Milano Cortina 2026 found that out the hard way. The job here is to make it easier.

What are the players called?

Four players per team, three of them named after their throw order and the fourth called something else entirely.

Skip. The captain. Calls the shots from behind the house with the broom, decides strategy, and throws the last two stones of an end. Usually the best thrower on the team.

Third (also vice-skip or vice). Throws the fifth and sixth stones and takes over calling shots when the skip throws.

Second. Throws the third and fourth stones. Often the strongest sweeper on the team.

Lead. Throws the first two stones of an end. Frequently a draw specialist, because leads set up the guards the rest of the team plays around.

Alternate. The fifth player on the roster who can sub in if a teammate is injured or unavailable. Standard in club play, rare at the Olympics.

What are the parts of the ice?

The ice is a 45-metre strip, players push off from a rubber block at one end, and the target at the other is a set of concentric circles.

Sheet. The whole playing strip, roughly 45 metres long by 5 metres wide.

House. The target at the far end. Four concentric circles: 12 foot, 8 foot, 4 foot, and the button at the middle.

Button. The bullseye at the centre of the house. No extra points for landing on it, but the stone closest to it wins the end.

Hog line. The line 6.4 metres in front of the house. The stone must be released before the near hog line and cross the far hog line to stay in play.

Tee line. The horizontal line through the middle of the house, cutting it in half front to back.

Back line. The line at the very back of the house. Any stone that fully crosses it is out of play.

Hack. The rubber foothold at each end where the thrower pushes off from. The starting block of curling.

What is the stone, and what are the bits of it?

A polished granite stone with a plastic handle, and almost all of them come from the same tiny Scottish island.

Stone (also rock). Polished granite, 44 pounds (about 20 kg), with a plastic gooseneck handle bolted through the top. Nearly every competition-grade stone in the world is quarried from Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited island 10 miles off the Ayrshire coast. There is a longer story about why they cost around £500 apiece.

Handle. The gooseneck grip bolted to the top of the stone. Used to impart rotation on release.

Running surface. The thin ring on the underside of the stone that actually touches the ice. Only about 7 mm wide.

In-turn. The rotation direction that makes the stone curl one way. For a right-hander, clockwise.

Out-turn. The opposite rotation. For a right-hander, anti-clockwise.

What are the different shots?

Every shot is either a draw (placing a stone) or a takeout (removing one), and everything else is a variation on those two.

Draw. A stone thrown gently enough to stop inside the house. The most common shot in the game.

Takeout (also hit). A stone thrown hard enough to knock an opponent’s stone out of play.

Guard. A draw that stops short of the house, in front of it, protecting a stone behind it.

Freeze. A precision draw that stops touching another stone without moving it. Nearly impossible to take out cleanly, which is what makes it worth throwing.

Tick. A gentle tap on a guard that shifts it slightly without removing it from play. Used to nudge an opponent’s centre-line guard off-line without breaking the free-guard-zone rule.

Hit and roll. A takeout where the delivered stone knocks the opponent’s stone out and rolls to a chosen spot in the house.

Peel. A hard takeout that removes both the target stone and the delivered stone from play. Usually intentional, and usually late in a game.

Come around. Any shot that curls around a guard to hide behind it.

How do points actually work?

Only one team scores in an end, and having the last stone matters enough that it has its own name.

End. A round of play. Each team throws eight stones (five in mixed doubles), and a regulation game runs to 10 ends (eight in mixed doubles).

Hammer. The last stone of an end. Whoever throws it can react to whatever their opponent has left behind, which is a serious tactical advantage, and every end is played around who has it and who wants it next.

Blank end. An end where neither team scores. The team with the hammer keeps it, which is why they sometimes blank an end on purpose.

Steal. Scoring an end without the hammer. Rare, and cheered.

Force. When the team with the hammer scores only one point. Not what they wanted, because they lose the hammer next end.

Deuce. Scoring two points in an end. The comfortable outcome for the hammer team.

What is everyone shouting?

The skip is telling the sweepers whether to keep sweeping, sweep harder, or stop.

Hurry! or Hard! Sweep, and sweep hard. Sweeping makes the stone travel further and curl less, though the physics of why is stranger than it looks.

Hurry hard! Both of the above at once. The most-shouted phrase in curling and the closest thing the sport has to a catchphrase.

Clean. Lightly brush any debris off the ice in front of the stone without changing its path. Different from sweeping.

Off! or Whoa! Stop sweeping. Called sharply, usually when the skip judges the stone has enough on it.

Never. Do not start sweeping. Called as the stone releases, when the skip has already read enough weight into it.

Right off! Stop everything, including cleaning. Sharper than “off”, and less common.

The Scottish words that make it sound like a different language

They sound like a different language because they are one, mostly.

Bonspiel (pronounced bon-speel). A curling tournament. From Scots “bond” (a league) and “spiel” (a game), first written in the 16th century. The Grand Match, still organised by the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, has been played on Scottish lochs since 1847. Britain’s two Olympic curling golds since Chamonix 1924 both went to Scottish skips: Rhona Martin in 2002 and Eve Muirhead in 2022.

Spiel (pronounced speel). An informal curling game. Short for bonspiel.

Besom (pronounced bee-zum). The old Scots word for a broom. Rarely used on TV, but every Scottish curler recognises it.

The roaring game. Curling’s oldest nickname, from the sound a stone made travelling across frozen pond ice. Indoor pebbled ice is quieter, but the name stuck.

Ailsa Craig. The uninhabited Scottish island 10 miles off Ayrshire, and the granite quarried from it. Kays of Scotland has made the world’s competition stones from that granite since 1851.

Brier. The Canadian men’s championship, held every year since 1927. Named after a tobacco brand that sponsored the first one.

The strategy words you only hear on the good broadcasts

These are the terms commentators reach for once a game gets tactical.

Free-guard zone. The area in front of the house. Opposition stones in it cannot be knocked out during the first five stones of an end. The 1990s rule that reshaped the game.

Power play. A mixed-doubles tactic, used once per game, that moves the pre-positioned stones off the centre line. Does not exist in four-player curling.

Hammer efficiency. How often the hammer team scores two or more. Elite teams top 50%, and it is how commentators judge tactical quality.

No-tick rule. A trial rule stopping teams from ticking centre-line guards early in an end. Used by the World Curling Federation in some competitions.

The five words that unlock everything else

Learn five terms and you understand about 80% of what a broadcast is saying.

The five are: hammer, because every end turns on who has it. Draw and takeout, because every shot is one or the other. End, because it is the unit that decides scoring. Hurry hard, because it is what most of the shouting means.

Learn those five and the rest sinks in as you watch. Or come and throw a stone yourself. Our ice-free curling sessions run from November at Vinegar Yard near London Bridge and Chelsea beside the Winter Illuminations. Pay and Play is £19.50 for a session, no experience needed. If London does not work, Rent 2 Curl brings the whole game to your own space anywhere in the UK.

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce “bonspiel”? Two syllables, stress on the first: bon-speel, rhyming with “on wheel”. Some TV commentators put a heavy emphasis on the second syllable, which is not how curlers say it. Drop that emphasis and you sound more fluent than most pundits.

Why is curling called “the roaring game”? A stone moving across natural pond ice makes a low rumbling sound. Modern indoor rinks with pebbled ice are much quieter, but the name has stuck since the 16th century.

What is a power play in curling? A mixed-doubles-only tactic. Once per game, a team can move both pre-positioned stones out to the side of the house rather than the centre line, creating a scoring opportunity. It does not exist in the four-player game.

What is a steal in curling? Scoring an end without the hammer. Hard to do, because the hammer team has the last stone and can usually undo the damage, which is why steals get cheered when they land.

Do all curling stones really come from one Scottish island? Almost all competition-grade stones come from Ailsa Craig, off the Ayrshire coast, quarried by Kays of Scotland. The granite is unusually dense and water-resistant, which is why nothing else has replaced it.