handball

noun handballs

1. countable, uncountable A ball held in, or thrown with, the hand, especially one used for one of the various games in later senses, below. Cranly took a small grey handball from his pocket and began to examine it closely, turning it over and over.
2. archaic, countable, uncountable The hollow rubber ball squeezed to produce spray from a perfume bottle or other atomizer.
3. countable, uncountable Any of various traditional ball games played outside between two goals often at a considerable distance from each other.
4. countable, uncountable Any of several games similar to fives, in which a ball is hit by the hand against a wall or within a walled court (the chief variants now being Gaelic handball and American handball).
5. uncountable A sport played on a rectangular court between two teams of seven players each, using a small ball struck only with the hands; team handball.
6. Australia, uncountable A schoolyard game in which a bouncy ball is struck with the hand, played on an improvised court on the asphalt or pavement.
7. countable An act of passing a football by holding it with one hand and hitting it with the other.
8. countable The offence of a player other than the goalkeeper touching the ball with the hand or arm on the field during play. It was a dramatic finish to an absorbing, fast-paced game but Blackburn will be deeply unhappy with referee Anthony Taylor as Nzonzi's handball was harsh.

Similar: European handball, Olympic handball, team handball, sport involving bouncing a ball off a wall

verb handballs · handballing · handballed

1. transitive To manually load or unload a container, trailer, or to otherwise manually move bulk goods (often on pallets) from one type of transport receptacle to another.
2. To illegally touch the ball with the hand or arm. If the defender handballs in the penalty area, a penalty is awarded.

   Similar: handle

3. To (legally) pass a football by holding it with one hand and hitting it with the other. Meanwhile, you can introduce the basic concept of Aussie rules through a game like lineball, a lead-up game introduced in the basketball section of chapter 10, but with the ball handballed, not thrown.
4. Australia, slang To pass responsibility for a task or problem to someone else, often to avoid dealing with an undesirable task or a tricky question. Now six months into the role I have come to learn that the boss’s idea of empowering and delegating is actually handballing or passing off tasks that they actually should be performing themselves.

   Similar: offload

5. slang To insert a hand into someone's anus.