bandy
Americanverb (used with object)
-
bandies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bandied,
past participle, past
-
bandying
present participle
-
to pass from one to another or back and forth; give and take; trade; exchange.
to bandy blows; to bandy words.
- Synonyms:
- barter, swap, interchange, reciprocate
-
to throw or strike to and fro or from side to side, as a ball in tennis.
-
to circulate freely.
to bandy gossip.
adjective
noun
-
bandies
plural
-
an early form of tennis.
-
Chiefly British. (formerly) hockey or shinny.
-
Obsolete. a hockey or shinny stick.
adjective
-
Also: bandy-legged. having legs curved outwards at the knees
-
(of legs) curved outwards at the knees
-
informal to amaze or astound
verb
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to exchange (words) in a heated or hostile manner
-
to give and receive (blows)
-
(often foll by about) to circulate (a name, rumour, etc)
-
to throw or strike to and fro; toss about
noun
-
an early form of hockey, often played on ice
-
a stick, curved at one end, used in the game of bandy
-
an old form of tennis
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
bandysimple
-
bandiessimple
-
have bandiedperfect
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has bandiedperfect
-
am bandyingprogressive
-
are bandyingprogressive
-
is bandyingprogressive
-
have been bandyingperfect progressive
-
has been bandyingperfect progressive
Past
-
bandiedsimple
-
had bandiedperfect
-
was bandyingprogressive
-
were bandyingprogressive
-
had been bandyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bandy
1570–80; perhaps < Spanish bandear to conduct, bandy, originally help, serve as member of a band of men. See band 1
Explanation
Bandy is a verb that means to toss many ideas around without focusing on just one. If you've ever brainstormed, you know what this is like — you bandy about different ideas until you find one that works. Bandy also means to exchange blows, like in a professional fight. As a skilled heavyweight boxer, you are known to bandy with your opponent for several minutes before you knock him out. Bandy comes from the Middle French word bander which means "to strike back and forth." These days it's also used as a more general term to describe tossing or hitting any ball back and forth.
Vocabulary lists containing bandy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"People bandy about those terms all the time, and it's ridiculous," he told the LA Times in May.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2025
“People bandy about those terms all the time, and it’s ridiculous,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2025
Self-identified light workers bandy about the concept of twin flames and profess that cumulus cloud tufts disguise space ships.
From Salon ● Dec. 4, 2023
"He wouldn't just bandy words about. It was on the inside, it was like a core inside him," she said.
From Reuters ● Nov. 25, 2023
Crookshanks skidded to a halt, crouched low on his bandy legs, and started making furious swipes beneath it with his front paw.
From "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling
The script bandies about all three options, concluding that he’s closest to a chosen curse.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
Aukerman, now with a much brasher energy, starts needling Mantzoukas, who bandies jokes back across the net.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2024
It seems just like the kind of slightly surreal utterance Singh often bandies around in interviews, but Cornershop's rather wonderful new album literalises this simile.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 17, 2011
This year the subdued bandies did march into the bowl singing "To hell with Yale" to the tune of O Tannenbaum, but that was all.
From Time Magazine Archive
He bandies jests with them, and answers their raillery, and all hustle each other, and laugh.
From Under Fire: the story of a squad by Wray, Fitzwater
Then, that data slab feeds off other sources to grow into a full-on digital dossier of your consumer attributes, bandied from advertiser to vendor to advertiser.
From Slate ● May 3, 2026
Among the proposals bandied about was Pakistan hosting a meeting between U.S. and Iranian senior leaders, the officials said, adding that the U.S. quickly warmed to that idea.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
Sir George is frequently bandied about as the so-called fifth Beatle.
From Salon ● Jan. 15, 2026
The term “gadfly” often is bandied about local government to describe those who never miss a public meeting.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2025
“Surely, My Lord, everything you say is observed, bandied about, and praised.”
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson
It’s a spirit that is certainly related to, yet distinctly different from, the bawdy bandying that unfolds in Pasadena.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 26, 2022
CNN later found that Walker had been bandying this falsehood since as early as 2008, telling people that he graduated in the top 1% of his class.
From Salon ● Jun. 15, 2022
Journalists began bandying around the R-word this summer, after the Federal Reserve reported that industrial production had contracted for two straight quarters.
From Slate ● Oct. 5, 2019
How much they are giving is kept largely secret because there is a fear that bandying about figures of millions of dollars would increase attacks on health workers.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2019
Some of the worshippers who dropped in to read a page or two of an evening would gather in groups, bandying gossip or talking foreign politics, of which, indeed, they had the most grotesque conceptions.
From The White Terror and The Red A novel of revolutionary Russia by Cahan, Abraham
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
