screwball

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“
Shea Mesa throws a changeup to compliment her screwball, her most effective pitch, while Mealani Mesa stuck to a fastball in her first game pitching in the Yerington Tournament last weekend.

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Definitions (6)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Baseball A pitched ball that curves in the direction opposite to that of a normal curve ball.
  2. noun Slang An eccentric, impulsively whimsical, or irrational person.
  3. adjective Slang Impulsively whimsical; eccentric: That screwball proposal won't work.

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Examples (44)

  • He started by noting that linguists normally simply dismiss the usage canon as crazy, 'screwball', 'unprincipled', and consisting of 'undemonstrated' stuff.
  • "Say, you do pretty well as a screwball sailor Think anyone will recognize me Oh, any disguise can be seen through in time," Monk said. —  094 - The Men Vanished
  • Kalinoff is a screwball, and you know it, Captain. —  JULY, 1953 VOL
  • Let him get Kalinoff off this God-forsaken planet, where he had been marooned for the past year, and even an interplanetary screwball might be expected to show some feeling of gratitude. —  JULY, 1953 VOL
  • Sure. A screwball is likely to do anything Space swore some more, made no other answer Prinz asked, "Who hid the microphones in Jones' house Space said, "I did. —  117 - They Died Twice
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

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