A hobby was once a toy horse
A hobby was originally a small horse, and then a hobby horse, the children's toy made of a stick with a horse's head on the end. By the 1600s, riding your hobby horse meant going on about a favourite subject, and the phrase was shortened to hobby for any pastime pursued for its own sake. It still carries a trace of that: something done because you enjoy it, not because you have to.
The word covers an enormous range. Some hobbies make things — KNITTING, POTTERY, SEWING, QUILTING, CROCHET, WHITTLING, BAKING. Some get you moving, like HIKING, CYCLING and DANCING. Some are quiet and absorbing, like READING, PUZZLES, CHESS, ORIGAMI and COLLECTING, and some are about expression: PAINTING, DRAWING, SKETCHING, SCULPTING and SINGING.
What hobbies do for people
A study published in 2023 looked at data from more than 93,000 people aged 65 and over in sixteen countries and found that those who had a hobby reported better health, more happiness and higher satisfaction with life, and fewer signs of depression. A study like that cannot prove the hobby caused the difference, but the link held across very different countries.
Psychologists describe a state called flow, when someone is so absorbed in a task that time seems to disappear. The term comes from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who in the 1970s interviewed artists, rock climbers and chess players about how their best moments felt. It tends to happen when an activity is challenging enough to need full attention but not so hard it becomes frustrating — which describes a great many crafts and games. Hobbies also bring people together, from knitting groups and chess clubs to choirs and allotment societies.
Hobbies needed free time first
For most people in history, spare time was scarce, and pastimes were a luxury. Shorter factory hours in the nineteenth century, the Saturday half-day, and the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, which created the first official bank holidays in Britain, gave working people regular time off for the first time. Clubs, allotments, cycling groups and brass bands grew up to fill it.
The Victorians also had collecting crazes. From the 1840s to the 1860s Britain was gripped by fern fever, known as pteridomania: people hunted wild ferns on country walks, grew them in glass cases in their parlours, and printed fern patterns on everything from pottery to garden benches. So many were dug up that some rare species almost disappeared from the wild.
Starting one
Most hobbies need very little to begin: a pencil for DRAWING, a pack of paper for ORIGAMI, a ball of wool and two needles for KNITTING, a library card for READING. Many of the crafts in this grid have their own page on the site, each with its own puzzle and history. COOKING and baking are among the most common pastimes of all, and cycling is one of the few that can also get you to school.
The best hobby is usually the one that someone sticks with, and for children that often means trying several. CRAFTING, GARDENING, FISHING and the rest reward patience, and being a beginner is part of the fun.