football

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Sports A game played by two teams of 11 players each on a rectangular, 100-yard-long field with goal lines and goal posts at either end, the object being to gain possession of the ball and advance it in running or passing plays across the opponent's goal line or kick it through the air between the opponent's goal posts.
2. n. Sports The inflated oval ball used in this game.
3. n. Chiefly British Rugby.
4. n. Chiefly British Soccer.
5. n. Chiefly British The ball used in Rugby or soccer.
6. n. Informal A problem or issue that is discussed among groups or persons without being settled: The issue of tax reform became a political football.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A ball consisting originally of an inflated bladder, now of a hollow globe of india-rubber or of heavy canvas saturated with rubber, cased in leather, round or oval in shape, and designed to be driven by the foot in the game called by the same name. See def. 2.
2. n. A game played with such a ball by two parties of players on a level plot of ground, at each end of which is a goal through or beyond which the players strive to drive the ball. There are various ways of playing the game, the two most commonly recognized being the “Association” and the “Rugby” game, the latter either in its original form or as played in America in a modified form. The field is 330 feet long by 160 wide, and in the middle of each end is a goal formed of two upright posts, in the Rugby game 18½ feet apart with a cross-bar 10 feet above the ground, and in the Association game 24 feet apart with a cross-bar 8 feet from the ground. There are 11 players on each side (in the Rugby game sometimes 15), divided into rushers and backs; the special object of the former being to check their opponents and to rush or push forward the ball in a body, and of the latter to kick or run with the ball. The two sides cast lots, the winner having the privilege of beginuing the game with possession of the ball, or of selecting the goal. In the Rugby game the players can kick, run with, or throw the ball (but not throw it forward toward their opponents' goal); in the Association game they can only kick it. The playing is begun by kicking off the ball from midway between the goals, and the players strive to force the ball through or beyond their opponents' goal. In the Association game, to win a goal the ball must be kicked through the goal below the cross-bar, and the side securing the largest number of goals wins the game. In the Rugby game scoring is by goals, touch-downs, and safety touch-down or safeties. A goal is won by kicking the ball through or above the goal-posts over the cross-bar; a touch-down, by carrying the ball behind the goal and there touching it to the ground, which gives the player a try—that is, the right to carry the ball out in front of the goal and try to kick a goal; a safety touch-down or safety, by forcing one's opponents to touch the ball to the ground behind one's own goal. The play continues for a certain length of time (in 1894 one hour and ten minutes), divided into two parts by a short intermission, at which time the players change sides. Football is an ancient game, probably introduced into Great Britain by the Romans, though the first distinct mention of it is in Fitzstephen's History of London, about 1175.
3. n. Figuratively, an object or a person subjected to hard usage or to many vicissitudes or changes of condition: as, he was the foot-ball of fortune.

Wiktionary

1. n. chiefly UK, uncountable association football: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball. Known as soccer in the US
2. n. US, uncountable American football: a game in which two teams attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
3. n. Canada, uncountable Canadian football: a game played on a wide field in which two teams attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
4. n. Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, uncountable Australian rules football.
5. n. Ireland, uncountable Gaelic football: a field game played with similar rules to hurling, but using hands and feet rather than a stick, and a ball, similar to, yet smaller than a soccer ball.
6. n. Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, uncountable rugby league.
7. n. Australia, Ireland, New Zealand rugby union
8. n. countable The ball used in any game called "football".
9. n. uncountable Practise of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
10. n. figuratively, countable An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner
11. n. slang, countable The nickname of the leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans, which is always near the US President.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An inflated ball to be kicked in sport, usually made in India rubber, or a bladder incased in Leather.
2. n. The game played with a football{1}, by two opposing teams of players moving the ball between goals at opposite ends of a rectangular playing field. Outside the United States football refers to soccer, and in England, also to rugby, but in the United States the shape of the ball and the rules of the game are different.
3. n. Brit. Soccer or rugby.
4. n. Something which is treated in a rough manner, usually as part of a dispute.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of various games played with a ball (round or oval) in which two teams try to kick or carry or propel the ball into each other's goal
2. n. the inflated oblong ball used in playing American football