football

English Online Dictionary. What means football‎? What does football mean?

English

Alternative forms

• foot-ball, foot ball (dated)

Etymology

From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot +‎ ball, which may refer to the act of kicking a ball with the feet or to the fact the game was played on foot (as opposed to on horseback or with players in fixed positions). The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊtbɔːl/, [ˈfʊʔt̚bɔːl], [ˈfʊʔtʰbɔːl], [ˈfʊʔbɔːl]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊtbɔl/, [ˈfʊʔtbɔɫ], [ˈfʊʔt̚bɔɫ]
• (cot–caught merger, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊtbɑl/, [ˈfʷʊʔt̚bɑɫ]
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈfʊtboːl/
• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /fʉtbɔl/
• Hyphenation: foot‧ball

Noun

football (countable and uncountable, plural footballs)

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

2. (UK, Africa, Caribbean, South Asia, 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.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

3. (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.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

4. (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.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

5. (Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, southern New South Wales, uncountable) Australian rules football.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

6. (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.
7. (Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, uncountable) rugby league.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

8. (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, uncountable) rugby union.
9. (countable) The ball used in any game called "football".

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:football

10. (uncountable) Practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
11. (figuratively, countable) An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner

12. (US military slang, countable) The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President.

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

    Coordinate term: Cheget

Usage notes

• The word football usually refers to the most popular football code in that country or region. In some places, multiple sports can be called football (for example, in Australia it may refer to soccer, Australian rules football, rugby union or rugby league depending on the area and speaker) and context can be required to tell to which sport it refers. In countries where no form of football is dominant, and among English as a second language speakers in general, football usually refers to association football (soccer) by default.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

• foosball (from German: Fußball (Fussball), itself a calque of English: football)

Descendants

Translations

Verb

football (third-person singular simple present footballs, present participle footballing, simple past and past participle footballed)

1. (intransitive, rare) To play football.

See also

• Category:en:Football (soccer) for a list of terms used in football/soccer.

References

• “football”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Further reading

• football on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• football (word) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• American football on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• nuclear football on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English football.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fut.bol/, /fut.bal/

Noun

football m (plural footballs)

1. association football, soccer

   Synonyms: foot, (Louisiana) pelote au pied, (North America) soccer

2. (Canada) Canadian football

   Synonym: football canadien

3. (US) American football

   Synonym: football américain

Hyponyms

Further reading

• “football”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Interlingua

Etymology

From English football.

Noun

football (uncountable)

1. football (UK), soccer (US, Canada)

Middle English

Noun

football

1. Alternative form of fotbal

Portuguese

Pronunciation

Noun

football m (uncountable)

1. Alternative spelling of futebol

Swedish

Etymology

From English football, clipping of English American football,.

football c

1. American football

Usage notes

Found primarily in subtitling of television and movies, due to its brevity, where fotboll could be interpreted as association football.

Synonyms

• Amerikansk fotboll