Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a ticket for future use given to spectators at an outdoor event, as a baseball game or concert, that has been postponed or interrupted by rain.
- an offered or requested postponement of an invitation until a more convenient, usually unspecified time: Since you can’t join us for dinner, we’ll give you a rain check.
- a ticket, coupon, or the like, entitling a customer to purchase at a later date and for the same amount a sale item that is temporarily out of stock.
noun
- US and Canadian a ticket stub for a baseball or other game that allows readmission on a future date if the event is cancelled because of rain
- the deferral of acceptance of an offer, esp a voucher issued to a customer wishing to purchase a sale item that is temporarily out of stock, enabling him or her to buy it at the special price when next the item is available
- take a rain check informal to accept the postponement of an offer
A promise that an unaccepted offer will be renewed in the future, as in I can’t come to dinner Tuesday but hope you’ll give me a rain check. This term comes from baseball, where in the 1880s it became the practice to offer paying spectators a rain check entitling them to future admission for a game that was postponed or ended early owing to bad weather. By the early 1900s the term was transferred to tickets for other kinds of entertainment, and later to a coupon entitling a customer to buy, at a later date and at the same price, a sale item temporarily out of stock.