baseball — English Dictionary

Noun

1. A sport common in North America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, in which the objective is to strike a ball so that one of a nine-person team can run counter-clockwise among four bases, resulting in the scoring of a run. The team with the most runs after termination of play, usually nine innings, wins.

   Usage

   • Uncountable

   Examples

   More examples (2)

   It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, base-ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books.

   “Your father was the best baseball player anyone had ever seen.” Excited but halting, her voice ran on past all obstacles. “We watched him play shortstop, and my father said he was the best, and my brothers too. The Cardinals sent a man down to talk to him about one of their teams.” Like an ancient marineress, she would not let go. She meant the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm teams.

2. The ball used to play the sport of baseball.

   Usage

   • Countable

   Examples

   More examples (1)

   The reason we have for so long been unaware that the universe evolves probabilistically is that for the relatively large, everyday objects we typically encounter -- baseballs, flowerpots, the Moon -- quantum mechanics shows that the probabilities become highly skewed, hugely favoring one outcome and effectively suppressing all others. […] With such a skewed probability, the quantum reasoning goes, we have long overlooked the tiny chance that the baseball can (and, on extraordinarily rare occasions, will) land somewhere completely different.

3. A variant of poker in which cards with baseball-related values have special significance.

   Usage

   • Countable
   • Uncountable

Noun

1. a ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players; teams take turns at bat trying to score runs

   Synonyms

   baseball gameball

   Broader terms

   ball gameballgame

   Examples

   he played baseball in high school

   there was a baseball game on every empty lot

   More examples (2)

   there was a desire for National League ball in the area

   play ball!

2. a ball used in playing baseball

   Broader terms

   ballbaseball equipment