football
Pronunciation: /ˈfʊt.bɔːl/
The English word “football” has 14 meanings listed here.
noun
- A sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.
- The ball used in any game called "football".
- Association football, also called soccer: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball.
- American football: a game played on a field 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide in which two teams of 11 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
- Canadian football: a game played on a field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide in which two teams of 12 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
- Australian rules football.
- 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.
- Any form of rugby.
- rugby league.
- rugby union.
- Practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
- An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner
- The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President.
verb
- To play football.
Etymology
From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot + ball, because the ball was primarily manipulated with the feet in early versions of the game (though some modern varieties involve more handling than kicking). The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.