football

plural footballs · alternative dated foot-ball · alternative dated foot ball

1. countablegeneraluncountableA sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.

   Roman and medieval football matches were more violent than any modern type of football.

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   [page 104] [T]he Footeball play, […] could not poſſibly haue grovvne to this greatnes, that it is novv at, not haue bene ſo much vſed, as it is in all places, if it had not had great helpes, both to health and ſtrength, […] [page 105] [T]he Footeball ſtrengtheneth and bravvneth the vvhole body, and by prouoking ſuperfluities dovvnevvard, it diſchargeth the head, and vpper partes, it is good for the bovvells, and to driue dovvne the ſtone and grauell from both the bladder and kidneies. It helpeth vveake hammes, by much mouing, beginning at a meane, and ſimple ſhankes by thickening of the fleſh, no leſſe than riding doth. Yet raſh running & to much force oftẽtimes [oftentimes] breaketh ſome invvard cõduit [conduit], & bringeth ruptures.

   1581, Richard Mulcaster, “Of the Ball”, in Positions wherin Those Primitive Circvmstances be Examined, which are Necessarie for the Training Vp of Children, either for Skill in Their Booke, or Health in Their Bodie. […], London: […] Thomas Vautrollier for Thomas Chare [i.e., Chard], →OCLC, pages 104 and 105

2. countableThe ball used in any game called "football".

   The player kicked the football.

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   Hans Moleman Production presents: Man getting hit by football.

   The league said the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots used footballs that didn’t meet league specifications in the first half of the AFC championship game last Sunday.

   2015 January 23, Ralph Ellis, “NFL says it’s looking into why footballs were deflated at Patriots game”, in CNN, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2016

   “The coroner and the pathologist described how badly damaged my dad’s brain was,” his daughter Dawn told CNN in 2019. “He found that there was considerable evidence of trauma to the brain which he said was similar to the brain of the boxer. And he said that the main candidate for the trauma was heading the footballs.

   2020 February 24, Jack Guy, “UK football authorities ban children from heading footballs in training”, in CNN, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2020

3. AfricaCaribbeanNew ZealandSouth AsiaUKuncountableAssociation 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.

   Each team scored three goals when they played football.

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   “Our research has shown that heading is rare in youth football matches, so this guidance is a responsible development to our grassroots coaching without impacting the enjoyment that children of all ages take from playing the game.”

   2020 February 24, Jack Guy, “UK football authorities ban children from heading footballs in training”, in CNN, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2020

4. USuncountableAmerican 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.

   Each team scored two touchdowns when they played football.

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   According to Newsday, he took the ball to his team’s equipment staff, which then informed head coach Chuck Pagano, who told general manager Ryan Grigson, who told NFL director of football operations Mike Kensil, who told the officials on the field.

   2015 January 23, Ralph Ellis, “NFL says it’s looking into why footballs were deflated at Patriots game”, in CNN, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2016

5. CanadauncountableCanadian 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.

   They played football in the snow.

6. AustraliaNew South WalesSouthSouthernTasmaniaWesternuncountableVictoria; Northern Territory; Victoria; Northern TerritoryAustralian rules football.

   The weekend after AFL football chief Simon Lethlean made it clear players who jumper punched or punched opponents in the stomach would most likely be suspended, Jones was charged with striking Hawthorn’s Luke Breust.

   2017 May 29, “Zak Jones fined for off-the-ball hit, escapes MRP suspension”, in Fox Footy, archived from the original on 18 Jul 2024, retrieved 25 Jul 2025

7. IrelanduncountableGaelic 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.
8. AustraliaNew ZealandcountableuncountableAny form of rugby.

   There's another game of football and there's a gold team and Mum and Dad are both on it!

   2022, Joe Brumm, “The Decider”, in Bluey, spoken by Chucky

   1. AustraliaNew South WalesNew Zealanduncountablerugby league.
   2. AustraliaIrelandNew Zealanduncountableother parts of Australiarugby union.
9. uncountablePractice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.

   Both teams played open, attacking football and in the first thirty minutes, the referee barely blew his whistle.

   2014 May 10, Novy Kapadia, The Football Fanatic’s Essential Guide Part 1: Origins to 1974, Hachette UK, →ISBN, page 15

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   Sloppy football continued after the first break, as the more composed Brunswick controlled the play by relying on the throw-pass: forty times to Williamstown's twenty-eight.

   2024 September 24, Xavier Fowler, Football War: The VFA and VFL's Battle for Supremacy 1930-1949, Melbourne Univ. Publishing, →ISBN

10. countablefigurativelyAn item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner

    That budget item became a political football.

11. UScountableslanggovernmentThe leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President.

    After the lunch broke, we walked to the Trump-Putin press conference, which started about 6 p.m. As Kelly observed to me at some point, there were now two military aides in the room, each carrying his country's nuclear football.

    2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 155

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    The aide rides, along with the president's physician, in the “control car,” third in line in the motorcade. He is responsible for the football (or “black box” or “black bag”), a briefcase containing the codes and targeting information the president would require to order or authorize a nuclear attack.

    1994, Herbert L. Abrams, The President Has Been Shot: Confusion, Disability, and the 25th Amendment, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 126

    It came in the shape of the White House military office Marine Corps aide who got off the president’s helicopter with him in Davos holding the “football”, the black briefcase carrying the codes for launching the 900 nuclear weapons the US has on alert at all times. It is the constant antidote to any temptation to laugh at Trump’s rants or gaffes.

    2026 January 21, Julian Borger, “Trump’s rambling Davos speech rehashes warped ideas of US supremacy”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Feb 2026

    Synonyms: nuclear football, atomic football, black box, black bag

present singular third person footballs · participle present footballing · participle past footballed · past footballed · alternative dated foot-ball · alternative dated foot ball

1. intransitiverareTo play football.

   It was an announcement of the outbreak of what is now termed World War I. Some of us lads were footballing when we heard the news. It left us bewildered.

   1969, Alec Hugh Chisholm, The Joy of the Earth, page 358

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   You walked up our road, passed the elms that bordered our park until Dutch disease killed them in the early 1970s, diagonally crossed its field where we footballed, turned right at the drinking fountain and cattle trough […]

   2019, David Randall, Suburbia: A Far from Ordinary Place