Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A formal gathering for social dancing.
  • noun Informal An extremely enjoyable time or experience.
  • noun A spherical object or entity.
  • noun A spherical or almost spherical body.
  • noun Any of various movable and round or oblong objects used in various athletic activities and games.
  • noun Such an object moving, thrown, hit, or kicked in a particular manner.
  • noun A game, especially baseball or basketball, played with such an object.
  • noun A pitched baseball that does not pass through the strike zone and is not swung at by the batter.
  • noun A solid spherical or pointed projectile, such as one shot from a cannon.
  • noun Projectiles of this kind considered as a group.
  • noun A rounded part or protuberance, especially of the body.
  • noun A testicle.
  • noun Courage, especially when reckless.
  • noun Great presumptuousness.
  • intransitive verb To form into a ball.
  • intransitive verb Vulgar Slang To have sexual intercourse with.
  • intransitive verb To become formed into a ball.
  • intransitive verb Vulgar Slang To have sexual intercourse.
  • idiom (have) To have control over someone; have someone at one's mercy.
  • idiom (on the ball) Alert, competent, or efficient.
  • idiom (on the ball) Relating to qualities, such as competence, skill, or knowledge, that are necessary for success.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A belt of sand a short distance offshore on which waves break in rough weather.
  • noun A white streak or spot.
  • noun A horse or nag (originally, white-faced): used appellatively, like dun, bayard.
  • An obsolete form of bawl.
  • noun A spherical or approximately spherical body; a sphere; a globe: as, a ball of snow, of thread, of twine, etc. Specifically
  • noun A round or nearly round body, of different materials and sizes, for use in various games, as base-ball, foot-ball, cricket, tennis, billiards, etc.
  • noun A game played with a ball, especially base-ball or any modification of it.
  • noun A toss or throw of a ball in a game: as, a swift ball; a high or low ball.
  • noun In base-ball, a pitch such that the ball fails to pass over the home-plate not higher than the shoulder nor lower than the knees of the striker: as, the pitcher is allowed five balls by the rules of the game.
  • noun A small spherical body of wood or ivory used in voting by ballot. See ballot and blackball.
  • noun The missile or projectile thrown from a firearm or other engine of war; a bullet or cannon-ball, whether spherical (as originally) or conical or cylindrical (as now commonly); in artillery, a solid projectile, as distinguished from a hollow one called a shell (which see).
  • noun Projectiles, and more particularly bullets, collectively: as, to supply a regiment with powder and ball; the troops were ordered to load with ball.
  • noun In printing, a rounded mass or cushion of hair or wool, covered with soft leather or skin, and fastened to a stock called a ball-stock, used (generally in pairs, one for each hand) before the invention of the roller to ink type on the press: still in use by wood-engravers, but made of smaller size, and with a silk instead of a leather face.
  • noun A clew or cop of thread, twine, or yarn.—
  • noun A spherical piece of soap.
  • noun A rounded package; a bale.
  • noun In metallurgy, one of the masses of iron, weighing about 80 pounds, into which, in the process of converting pig-iron into wrought-iron by puddling, the iron in the reverberatory furnace is made up as soon as it begins to assume a pasty condition.
  • noun In medicine, a bolus; a large pill: now only in veterinary medicine.
  • noun In pyrotechnics, a globular mass of combustible ingredients, or a case filled with them, designed to set fire to something or to give forth light, etc.; a fireball.
  • noun In cabinet-work, the composition of shoemakers' wax used in waxing black-work.
  • noun Any part of a thing, especially of the human body, that is rounded or protuberant: as, the ball of the eye; the ball of the thumb; the ball of a dumb-bell; the ball of a pendulum, that is, the bob or weight at the bottom.
  • noun The central hollow of the palm of the hand.
  • noun The central part of an animal's foot.
  • noun A testicle: generally in the plural.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French bal, from Old French, from baller, to dance, from Late Latin ballāre, from Greek ballizein; see gwelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English bal, probably from Old English *beall; see bhel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bal, ball, balle, from Old English *beall, *bealla ("round object, ball") or Old Norse bǫllr ("a ball") (whence the Icelandic böllur ("scrotum; penis; a ball")), both from Proto-Germanic *balluz, *ballô (“ball”), from Proto-Indo-European *bholn- (“bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhel- (“to blow, inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old Saxon ball, Dutch bal, Old High German bal, ballo (German Ball ("ball"); Ballen ("bale")). Related forms in Romance are borrowings from Germanic. See also balloon, bale.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French bal, from Late Latin ballare.

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Examples

  • A young lady, whilst congratulating him on his elevation, and requesting him to give a ball during the vacation, happened to touch his wig with her fan, and caused the powder to fly about; upon which the doctor exclaimed, "My dear, you see you can get the powder out of the _cannon_, but not the _ball_."

    The Jest Book The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings Mark Lemon 1839

  • To celebrate his recovery, his lordship determined to give a ball; and Miss Bateman persuaded him to make it a _fancy ball_.

    Tales and Novels — Volume 05 Maria Edgeworth 1808

  • Using his line drive%, ground ball% and fly ball% to normalize things a bit, his batted-ball type should translate to about a .352 BABIP.

    Bless You Boys 2010

  • $query = "SELECT * FROM ball WHERE ball_id = '$ball'";

    Latest Developer Updates from MySQL AB Parker England 2009

  • Ball is moved on canvas using specified speed, Move () method in ball class will move ball to new X and Y location. sender, EventArgs e) {_ball.

    The Code Project Latest Articles Yasser Azeem 2010

  • Ball is moved on canvas using specified speed, Move () method in ball class will move ball to new X and Y location. sender, EventArgs e) {_ball.

    The Code Project Latest Articles Yasser Azeem 2010

  • The Dudesons in America - co-produced by Jackass star Johnny Knoxville - took the term ball-busting to a new visual level.

    BN - Broadcast Newsroom-news 2010

  • The Dudesons in America - co-produced by Jackass star Johnny Knoxville - took the term ball-busting to a new visual level.

    BN - Broadcast Newsroom-news 2010

  • The Dudesons in America - co-produced by Jackass star Johnny Knoxville - took the term ball-busting to a new visual level.

    BN - Broadcast Newsroom-news 2010

  • The Dudesons in America - co-produced by Jackass star Johnny Knoxville - took the term ball-busting to a new visual level.

    BN - Broadcast Newsroom-news 2010

Comments

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  • See player.

    September 9, 2007