Meaning: It's used in a whole host of sports - even marbles, if you count marbles as a sport - and refers to a player, for example, scoring three goals in a game or, in cricket, taking three consecutive wickets.
Origin: It started out as a description for a magician's trick, when he would pull a rabbit or a bunch of flowers out of his hat, but in sporting terms its origins are in cricket.
Heathfield Harman Stephenson (1833 - 1896) is generally credited with being the first bowler to be awarded a hat for pulling off the "trick" of dismissing three batsmen with consecutive deliveries in Sheffield in 1858.
An alternative version suggests a gambling origin where bowlers were challenged to take three consecutive wickets, and if they succeeded they collected the winnings from a hat that had been passed around for people's wagers.
World record: James O'Connor, who scored three goals in two minutes and 14 seconds for Shelbourne against Bohemians in 1967, held the official Guinness's record. But in 2004, 40 years after the feat, Ross County's Tommy Ross was credited with the fastest hat-trick. In 1964 Ross scored seven goals in an 8-1 win over Nairn County in the Highland League, three coming in just . . . 90 seconds.
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