baseball

Meanings

1. A sport played with a bat and ball between two teams, popular especially in the United States.
2. The ball used in that sport.

Example sentences

• "We watched a baseball game on Saturday."

  Level A1, Meaning 1

• "He wears a baseball cap everywhere."

  Level A1, Meaning 1

• "My brother plays baseball after school."

  Level A1, Meaning 1

• "She caught the baseball with one hand."

  Level A2, Meaning 2

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• softball : Softball is like baseball with a larger, softer ball and a smaller field. Baseball is the harder, faster game.
• cricket : Cricket is a bat and ball game from England with different rules. Baseball is the American game with four bases.

Word family and forms

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "baseball".

• a baseball game
• a baseball bat
• a baseball cap
• play baseball
• a baseball team
• a baseball field

Idioms and phrases

a whole new ball game

A completely different situation.

"After the move, life was a whole new ball game."

Origin

Baseball is made from base plus ball, and it is first recorded in English in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The name comes from the bases that players run to.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Baseball is base plus ball. Players run to a base after hitting a ball.

Test yourself

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