A safeword, as used in sports, is a

code word In communication, a code word is an element of a standardized code or protocol. Each code word is assembled in accordance with the specific rules of the code and assigned a unique meaning. Code words are typically used for reasons of reliability, ...

used by a player to avoid impending

injury An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, or ...

. In certain contact sports, such as rugby and

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring or ...

, when a player feels an opposing player's actions will cause the player serious injury, the player may utter a safeword to tell the opponent to stop the actions. Professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

footballers recognize the safeword "neck". A player may say "neck" during a

scrum Scrum may refer to: Sport * Scrum (rugby), a method of restarting play in rugby union and rugby league ** Scrum (rugby union), scrum in rugby union * Scrum, an offensive melee formation in Japanese game Bo-taoshi Media and popular culture ...

due to fear of a possible neck injury. Players on both teams will recognize this and immediately release any downward pressure. A more common example is "matte" (pronounced "mah-teh", meaning "Wait!") in most

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the pre ...

, including

judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...

, which indicates surrender, usually due to an arm lock or a choke. In professional competition, saying "stop" or "help" does not indicate surrender and the opponent may continue combat. In

catch wrestling Catch wrestling (originally catch-as-catch-can) is a classical hybrid grappling style and combat sport. It was developed by J. G. Chambers in Britain . It was popularised by wrestlers of travelling funfairs who developed their own submission h ...

and early competitive professional wrestling, a wrestler would say "

uncle An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an uncle is an aunt, and the reciprocal rela ...

" when put in a submission hold to signify that they give up. This has largely been replaced by the more popular "tapping out" that is often performed by visibly tapping the floor or the opponent with the hand as seen in

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inco ...

See also