soccer
[sok-er]
- a form of football played between two teams of 11 players, in which the ball may be advanced by kicking or by bouncing it off any part of the body but the arms and hands, except in the case of the goalkeepers, who may use their hands to catch, carry, throw, or stop the ball.
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Origin of soccer
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for soccer
Contemporary Examples
Soccer in the rest of the world is what we know as basketball.
United States goalkeeper Tim Howard on why soccer struggles in America and how he essentially chose his career over his wife.
Messi is a phenomenon of world sport, a 5-foot-7 soccer giant.
There were also “NASCAR moms” and “soccer moms,” other designations that tended to favor Republicans, as do married women today.
Ghanaian soccer player Michael Essien, who plays for AC Milan, has been the subject of what borders on fear mongering.
Historical Examples
He also loathed the betting element that defiled the Soccer game.
War Letters of a Public-School BoyPaul Jones.
We had a "soccer" team, a "rugger" team, and a cricket eleven.
And, indeed, soccer was not at all popular for some time afterward.
The Book of DragonsEdith Nesbit
Soccer is one of the relatively few English experiments in ellipsis.
The American LanguageHenry L. Mencken
Being able to run so fast, I might have been very good on the track team or at soccer.
The Biography of a RabbitRoy Benson
soccer
- a game in which two teams of eleven players try to kick or head a ball into their opponent's goal, only the goalkeeper on either side being allowed to touch the ball with his hands and arms except in the case of throw-ins
- (as modifier)a soccer player
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Word Origin
C19: from (as) soc. + -er
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 soccer
n.
1889, socca, later socker (1891), soccer (1895), originally university slang (with jocular formation -er (3)), from a shortened form of Assoc., abbreviation of association in Football Association (as opposed to Rugby football); cf. rugger. An unusual method of formation, but those who did it perhaps shied away from making a name out of the first three letters of Assoc.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper