football

noun footballs · foot-ball · foot ball

1. countable, general, uncountable A 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.
2. countable The ball used in any game called "football". The player kicked the football.
3. Africa, Caribbean, New Zealand, South Asia, UK, uncountable Association 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.
4. US, uncountable American 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.
5. Canada, uncountable Canadian 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. Australia, New South Wales, South, Southern, Tasmania, Western Australian 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.
7. Ireland, uncountable Gaelic 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. Australia, New Zealand, countable, uncountable Any form of rugby. There's another game of football and there's a gold team and Mum and Dad are both on it!
9. Australia, New South Wales, New Zealand, uncountable rugby league.
10. Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, uncountable rugby union.
11. uncountable Practice 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.
12. countable, figuratively An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner That budget item became a political football.
13. US, countable, slang The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President. 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 attac

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

Similar: association football, soccer, soccer football, football, footy, footie, footer, oikball, wogball, American football, gridiron, gridiron football, Canadian football, Aussie rules, VFL, AFL, league, ball, pill, soccer ball, pigskin, rugby ball

verb footballs · footballing · footballed · foot-ball · foot ball

1. intransitive, rare To 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.