football
(fʊtbɔːl )
Word forms: footballs
1. uncountable noun A1 regional note: in AM, use soccer
Football is a game played by two teams of eleven players using a round ball. Players kick the ball to each other and try to score goals by kicking the ball into a large net. [British]
Several boys were still playing football on the waste ground.
...Arsenal Football Club.
...Italian football fans.
2. uncountable noun regional note: in BRIT, use American football
Football is a game played by two teams of eleven players using an oval ball. Players carry the ball in their hands or throw it to each other as they try to score goals that are called touchdowns. [US]
Two blocks beyond our school was a field where boys played football.
...this year's national college football championship.
3. countable noun A1
A football is a ball that is used for playing football.
Image of football
© Alexander Raths, Shutterstock
Collocations:
football hero football legend football squad football stadium football star football superstar football team football ticket kick a football offensive football outstanding football play football pro football professional football school football televised football throw a football varsity football watch football youth football
We paid for the evening to celebrate and support a football hero.
The Sun
It's a rough choice for a rock star or football hero, and which of us wouldn't hate to disappoint fans?
Times, Sunday Times
The film covers 25 years in the life of a college football hero.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
He was lauded as a football hero until the faculty disapproved of his playing.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
I walked into the changing room and there was one of my football heroes.
The Sun
It's good to have a football legend following us again.
The Sun
The football legend turns 40 today.
The Sun
The tattooed 24-year-old has even been approached by a lookalike agency keen to sign him up to play the football legend.
The Sun
Seeing the barrel-chested football legend in the front row will only add to the frenzy of the occasion.
Times, Sunday Times
But the tears turned to a smile as she read tributes to the football legend.
The Sun
Luck connects your family to a football squad.
The Sun
Luck connects you to a local football squad.
The Sun
Even so, there was a palpable sense of action and urgency as the band bobbed and weaved around the stage like a five-a-side football squad.
Times, Sunday Times
The full moon could bring exciting news that links your family with a football squad.
The Sun
Perhaps that's what's gone wrong with their national football squad.
Times, Sunday Times
It was not clear whether all the land was being purchased for property speculation or to develop a football stadium.
Times, Sunday Times (2009)
It has no place at work, at play or on the terraces of a football stadium.
The Sun (2012)
At the very rear of the arena was a digital clock the size of an electronic scoreboard in a football stadium.
In God's Country: travels in the Bible belt, USA. (1989)
Hmm: the football stadium is just a short walk away.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
The football star was the one who looked honoured by the experience.
The Sun
One had wanted to be a movie director, the other a football star.
Times, Sunday Times
There seemed nothing unusual, neither a trace of finality nor hidden agenda, when the local football star left home.
Times, Sunday Times
Police are expected to charge the disgraced former football star tomorrow and, if convicted, he could spend more than 30 years in prison.
Times, Sunday Times
He was the undisputed football star of the summer.
Times, Sunday Times
For now, he just keeps on scoring, a living artefact, the last football superstar of the analogue era.
Times,Sunday Times
They can then go online and sign up for a personalised football superstar poster.
The Sun
He's great to watch and will be the next football superstar.
The Sun
This year's stunning collection features all 32 teams, with graphics and amazing images of the world's highest-profile football superstars.
The Sun
It has a national flag, a national anthem, internet codes, even a football team.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
So let us not blame national character when the football team fail, the cricket team collapse and the rugby team blow hot and cold.
Times, Sunday Times (2008)
Having trained furiously during the vacation, he had expanded his muscles sufficiently to qualify as inside left in his class's football team.
The Times Literary Supplement (2012)
He plays a teacher struggling with the pressures both on and off the pitch while coaching a newly racially integrated school football team.
The Sun (2010)
DEFEAT for the football team you support spills over into the next day and has an adverse effect on work, a study found.
The Sun (2016)
The court noted that the minister received payments from his employer (football tickets and scholarship pledges) and that these payments inured to his benefit.
Christianity Today
The tickets released in the second round include 1.7 million football tickets.
Times, Sunday Times
That shows the disrespect today's footballers have for the people who have to pay for overpriced football tickets.
The Sun
Competitions for 250 in cash and football tickets.
The Sun
Football tickets would fall into this category.
Times, Sunday Times
But now, she would never kick a football again.
The Sun
Imagine having size 18 feet and trying to kick a football!
The Sun
He liked to skateboard, ride his bike, kick a football in the road.
Times, Sunday Times
If they couldn't kick a football, they would be collecting trollies from a supermarket car park.
The Sun
They would yell names, spit at him and kick a football at his window at night.
Times, Sunday Times
And he wants to be compact, to have the defensive line high and play offensive football.
Times, Sunday Times
We want to play offensive football from a base, but unfortunately it doesn't always mean you get goals.
Times, Sunday Times
We were not playing very offensive football.
The Sun
The cash was originally held back because of a dispute over other outstanding football debts.
The Sun
We played some outstanding football and developed some good, young players.
The Sun
It was just outstanding football and the mentality was brilliant.
The Sun
You could think of it like an outstanding football team - a hypothetical example, not a real club.
Times, Sunday Times
We responded to him, believed in him and played some outstanding football in that tournament.
The Sun
During those three years in the retail trade, he didn't even play football.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
He has played football, been on school outings, had a day of lessons on the beach and tried his hand at archery.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
Although playing football can help to prevent cardiovascular disease, taking part in competitive sports can act as a trigger for sudden cardiac death.
Times, Sunday Times (2012)
I play football and met a man at an away match 18 months ago.
The Sun (2011)
I was left with an ill-advised impulse purchase that was absolutely fine - as long as you didn't try to play football on it.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
The 23-year-old (below) worked as a scaffolder on the building sites for five years after turning his back on pro football.
The Sun
He gave up pro football for the band but fears missing in the show's shootout challenge.
The Sun
They say pro football quarterbacks fear one thing almost more than anything else: being blindsided.
Christianity Today
Stride has still not given up hopes of playing pro football.
The Sun
This aspect was foremost in the mind of pro football when non-contact social distance training commenced last week.
The Sun
Those who still believe that 50 per cent of the population shouldn't have the chance to play professional football are fighting a losing battle.
The Sun
But he was performing in front of his teammates years previously, inventing the singing player initiations now commonplace at professional football clubs.
The Sun
He was ready again for the challenge of professional football.
Times, Sunday Times
Certainly, it makes professional football of the billion-quid kind beyond-belief absurd.
Times, Sunday Times
It wasn't at all the sort of thing that every professional football player can do.
Times, Sunday Times
Legend has it that to alleviate the boredom of school football, he would sit on the field with his back to the game, knitting.
Times, Sunday Times
I was working out with my son on a hot day in the local high school football stadium.
Christianity Today
We soon learned that we both had been captains of our high school football teams.
Christianity Today
I got in the school football team and started to excel.
The Sun
My son has just been chosen for two school football teams and has to be at training by 8am.
Times, Sunday Times
Set your box-fresh decoder for next weekend's televised football.
Times, Sunday Times
Could it be that, after 20 years of unflinching service, these apparently concrete-set fixtures of the televised football scene are now attracting worse than indifference?
Times, Sunday Times
If that were true, how would we ever get any work done or televised football watched?
The Sun
Then they thought that televised football would take all the money from the game.
Times, Sunday Times
Allowing himself few external outlets, bar a voracious appetite for televised football, he could be an antisocial misery.
Times, Sunday Times
I always wished they would throw a football.
Times, Sunday Times
They can run around, throw the football, play on the swing set, dig a hole and fill it in.
Christianity Today
There were no players here with the talent to throw a football over a bus or mountainous centre-forwards.
Times, Sunday Times
Where did the ghost throw the football?
The Sun
Early in his career, he employed unusual methods such as having pitchers under his tutelage throw a football, but has since retracted those views.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Last year, the district increased security at its varsity football games.
Houston Chronicle
The pep band plays at all home varsity football games, and many varsity home basketball games.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
He played four years of varsity football and basketball and was all-state in both sports.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
The varsity football team finished with an 8-4-1 record.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
He was also quarterback of the varsity football team.
Retrieved from Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
I became a mountain bike rider, serial holiday-maker, gardener and travelled the world watching football.
The Sun (2007)
You get a pitch-side seat, with an utterly unobstructed view, and absolutely nothing whatsoever to do except watch the football.
Times, Sunday Times (2006)
You go and watch football for goals.
The Sun (2016)
More women and minorities watch football live than before.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
Indeed, most of his early investment was in youth football.
Times, Sunday Times
Investing in youth football would send out a similar message and may even produce a greater number of homegrown players.
Times, Sunday Times
Anyone who has watched youth football today will know how tricks are drilled out of players.
Times,Sunday Times
Agree to fund the 1 million infrastructure for a youth football programme and receive 100 cashback.
Times, Sunday Times
Questions remain, not least among those of us who spend our weekends around the park pitches of youth football.
Times, Sunday Times
Translations:
Chinese: 足球, 足球
Japanese: フットボール, サッカーボール
- relatively healthy
- relatively ineffective
- relatively inexpensive
- relatively inexperienced
- relatively innocuous
- relatively insignificant
- relatively intact
- relatively large
- relatively little
- relatively low-key
- relatively mild
- relatively minor
- relatively modest
- relatively narrow
- relatively new
- relatively normal
- relatively obscure
- relatively optimistic
- relatively painless
- relatively prosperous
- relatively quick
- relatively quiet
- relatively rapid
- relatively rare
- relatively recent