baseball
[beys-bawl]
- a game of ball between two nine-player teams played usually for nine innings on a field that has as a focal point a diamond-shaped infield with a home plate and three other bases, 90 feet (27 meters) apart, forming a circuit that must be completed by a base runner in order to score, the central offensive action entailing hitting of a pitched ball with a wooden or metal bat and running of the bases, the winner being the team scoring the most runs.
- the ball used in this game, being a sphere approximately 3 inches (7 cm) in diameter with a twine-covered center of cork covered by stitched horsehide.
- Cards. a variety of five-card or seven-card stud poker in which nines and threes are wild and in which threes and fours dealt face up gain the player either penalties or privileges.
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Origin of baseball
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for baseball
Contemporary Examples
Tim Russert and I are driving back to the Albany airport after taking our kids to the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
The kids had a gift for him too, a tee shirt with ‘Baseball Spoken Here’ stenciled across the front.
This would take time since, under current law, even scouting Cuban baseball players on the island is illegal.
Baseball has long been the most popular sport in Cuba and the island has long been a hotbed of baseball talent.
Available at Amazon Vince Camuto Moto Baseball Cap, $34 Baseball caps may be useful on the road, but they scream “tourist!”
The Daily Beast’s 2014 Holiday Gift Guide: For the Anthony Bourdain in Your LifeAllison McNearney
November 29, 2014
Historical Examples
Then Ned, from a baseball standpoint of safety, did what might be termed a foolish thing.
Frank Roscoe's SecretAllen Chapman
It would have been impossible to throw a baseball from one end to the other.
The Cruise of the Dry DockT. S. Stribling
He is trying to get your place as captain of the baseball club.
The Cash BoyHoratio Alger Jr.
Anyway, I advise you to resign as captain of the baseball club.
The Cash BoyHoratio Alger Jr.
They show the true sport in their games of football and baseball.
Policing the PlainsR.G. MacBeth
baseball
- a team game with nine players on each side, played on a field with four bases connected to form a diamond. The object is to score runs by batting the ball and running round the bases
- the hard rawhide-covered ball used in this game
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for baseball
n.
in the modern sense, 1845, American English, from base (n.) + ball (n.1). Earlier references, e.g. in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey," refer to the game of "rounders," of which baseball is a more elaborate variety. Legendarily invented 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, N.Y. Base was used for "start or finish line of a race" from 1690s; and the sense of "safe spot" found in modern children's game of tag can be traced to 14c. (the sense in baseball is from 1868).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper