broken field

Noun

broken field (plural broken fields)

1. A field in which there are defensive players from the other team between the player who has the ball and the goal.
   • Quarter-backs this year who have gained considerable notice are Fallis of Haskell Indians and Pooler of Kansas University, they both being very good in a broken field.1905, Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide, page 169
   • The forward passer receives the ball, runs a yard or two as a feint, and then, with scarcely a look over the broken field, selects a person and a place and throws the ball.1972, Chronicle of American Physical Education, page 383
2. A field that has been plowed.
   • The birds are gregarious even during the nesting season, and in spring and summer seem to be equally busy “ ploughing up ” the earth in the already broken field with their long, crowlike bills; naturally such action creates trouble with the farmer, but on the whole, an examination of the...1906, Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews, Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, page 72
   • My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain1916, Sara Teasdale, “The Broken Field”, in George Park Fisher, George Burton Adams, Henry Walcott Farnam, editors, The Yale Review, page 755