Definitions
Wiktionary
- n. baseball An easily caught fly ball
Etymologies
- The phrase, first used in 1896, makes reference to a long-ago practice where a grocer would use a stick to tip a can of vegetables off a high shelf, then catch it in his hands or outstretched apron. Note: the reason a can of "corn" is referenced and not a can of green beans, pumpkin or spinach is that corn was the best-selling vegetable and so was heavily stocked and on the lowest shelves, making it the easiest of the can "catches" for the grocer. (See Seattle Post Intelligencer - Sports Answer Guy article) (Wiktionary)
Examples
Sorry, no example sentences found.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘can of corn’.
-
some words
phatic, macerate, amanuenses, theophagy, seraglio, gloaming, geophagy, metaphone, anastrophe, neologism, tetragrammaton, bête noire and 568 more...
-
baseball
random baseball terms with some baseball slang mixed in
nubber, can of corn, southpaw, no-no, nubber, squeeze, flamethrower, whiff, zinger, three-bagger, tater, knuckler and 9 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for can of corn.
john "A couple of possible sources of the phrase are cited in the definitive 'New Dickson Baseball Dictionary.' The most accepted: The phrase, first used in 1896, makes reference to a long-ago practice where a grocer would use a stick to tip a can of vegetables off a high shelf, then catch it in his hands or outstretched apron. Another possible source: Such a pop fly is as easy to capture as 'corn from a can.'"
- from seattlepi.com Aug 28, 2007