ball1
/bɔːl
/- In those days we were just a bunch of street kids playing cricket with a tennis ball and practising drop kicks over the telephone wires.
- It was a little dangerous as we were worried that our oldest son might kick the soccer ball over the wire and set off the alarms.
- Coaches end up teaching the teens how to kick a soccer ball, leap hurdles or swing a bat.
- Then they chew the fibrous fruit into a ball of pulp and spend ages sucking out the goodness.
- It exploded in an orange ball of flame sending sand and metal fragments flying.
- Suddenly the boat exploded into a great ball of flame, sending pieces of it skyward.
- Also uncovered were musket balls, cannonballs, a grenade and tools.
- Eight of the lead musket balls have been flattened from impact, while others show mold lines, indicating that they had never been used.
- Michael Taylor says lead musket balls were made on the site and the team has found spills of molten lead that have formed small hollows in the ground.
Synonyms
- The little girl was playing ball with some other children.
- I try to stay vertical with the kite, while the kids run around, play ball or climb trees.
- On summer evenings I could listen to the voices of the older children playing ball.
- Every year pro ball bears less and less resemblance to the game collegians and kids play.
- He has played only two full years of pro ball but probably will be ready for the majors within two years.
- He fully realizes how rare it is to play high school, college, and pro ball in the same city.
- Each innings consists of 30 balls with batsmen retiring at 30 runs.
- I remember commercials ran till just in time to show the bowler releasing the second ball of the over.
- With his last ball in Test cricket, Davidson had Alan Smith, of England, caught behind.
- It could be frustrating for Rooney to go from Beckham dropping accurate balls over his shoulder to Everton players delivering wayward passes.
- He is inspirational in the heart of midfield, slipping intelligent balls through to the strikers, and possess a fearsome shot.
- He pounced on a loose ball to and passed to Duff who fed it through to Hasselbaink inside the penalty area.
- He lacks discipline at the plate and can often look bad swinging at balls outside the strike zone.
- Jimmy threw the next two pitches outside for balls.
- A lefthanded hitter, he has shown good power, aggressively attacking balls in the strike zone.
- He grinned, balling the cloth napkin on the table and throwing it my way.
- Unclasping the cloak, he caught it before it flew away and balled it untidily to tuck under his arm.
- A moment later, I catch the dishrag she'd balled up and thrown at me.
- He balled his hands into fists, gritting his teeth tightly.
- She balled her hands into fists at her sides and clenched her teeth with rage.
- He yawned and stretched his arms out, balling his hands into fists.
- Tiny mussels balled around the oysters, keeping them small and making them unfit for market.
- Closer and closer, the lightning force that was balling up in between the two was slowly moving its way towards Maddy.
- The man gave a scream of agony, balling up to clutch at his injury.
- Harvesting of balled, live trees may begin after completion of growth in late August or early September if soil moisture conditions are favorable.
- Spring is best for planting, but you can put balled and burlapped or container grown hollies in the ground in early spring or fall.
Phrases
the ball is in your court
a ball of fire
the ball of the foot
the ball of the thumb
have a lot (or not much) on the ball
keep the ball rolling
keep one's eye on (or take one's eye off) the ball
on the ball
play ball
start (or get or set) the ball rolling
the whole ball of wax
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse bǫllr, of Germanic origin.
The spherical ball dates from the early Middle Ages, and comes from an old Scandinavian word that was the ultimate root of Italian ballotta, from which English took ballot in the mid 16th century, and also of French ballon and Italian ballone ‘large ball’, one of which was the source of balloon. The ball at which people dance is unrelated. It came, in the early 17th century, from French, and goes back to Latin ballare ‘to dance’. This was also the source of ballad (Late Middle English) and ballet (mid 17th century).
In America a ball game is a baseball match and a ballpark a baseball stadium. These have entered even British English in phrases such as a whole new ball game, ‘a completely new set of circumstances’, in the (right) ballpark, ‘a particular area or range’, and a ballpark figure (an approximate figure).
The dancing sense has notably given us have a ball, meaning ‘enjoy yourself a lot’. This was originally an American expression of the 1930s, but is now used nearly everywhere that English is spoken.
Testicles have been balls since the Middle Ages, but the slang sense ‘nonsense’ is Victorian. The meaning ‘courage, determination’ is more recent still, dating only from the 1950s. People often claim that the phrase cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey comes from a former naval custom of storing cannonballs on a brass rack or ‘monkey’. When the weather was very cold the rack could contract and eject the cannonballs. There are some severe problems with this explanation, though. First, cannonballs were stored on a wooden rack, not a brass one. Second, it would have to be extremely cold to cause sufficient contraction in the metal for this to happen. And third, the earliest recorded versions of the phrase (dating from the 19th century) feature noses and tails rather than balls, suggesting that the reference is to a brass statue of a monkey, and that the ‘balls’ are testicles rather than cannonballs. See also bollock, cob, evil
Rhymes
ball2
/bɔːl/- I had many offers to balls and social gatherings but I had never accepted.
- They were in great demand for hunt balls, ballroom dancing, weddings and other social gatherings.
- An invitation to a formal dance or ball is the perfect excuse to indulge in your fairytale fantasies.
Synonyms
Phrases
have a ball
Origin
Early 17th century: from French bal 'a dance', from late Latin ballare 'to dance'; related to Greek ballizein 'to dance' (also ballein 'to throw').