Word.ws English Dictionary

balling off

balling off is the present participle and gerund of ball off.

Meaning of ball off

Verb

ball off (third-person singular simple present balls off, present participle balling off, simple past and past participle balled off)

  1. (dated, slang) To depart, especially quickly; to hurry away; to leave at a particular speed.
    • The ship balled off at 12 knots.
  2. (archaic) To spin rope-yarns into balls, in preparation for making spun yarn.

Questions about balling off

What is balling off the present participle and gerund of?
Balling off is the present participle and gerund of ball off.

Words near balling off in the dictionary

  1. balling
  2. balling down
  3. balling gun
  4. balling guns
  5. balling it off
  6. balling off
  7. balling out
  8. Balling scale
  9. balling up
  10. balling-iron
  11. balling-irons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: balling off (page history and authors); ball off (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “balling off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/balling_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.