Word.ws English Dictionary

call the ball

call the ball verb: when landing on a US aircraft carrier: to sight the lights from the multi-colored optical landing system that shows a pilot to be on the correct approach path or how to correct the approach path.

Verb

call the ball (third-person singular simple present calls the ball, present participle calling the ball, simple past and past participle called the ball)

  1. (US) When landing on a US aircraft carrier: to sight the lights from the multi-colored optical landing system that shows a pilot to be on the correct approach path or how to correct the approach path.
    • - Maverick, call the ball.1986, Top Gun (film)

Forms of call the ball

third-person singular presentcalls the ball
present participlecalling the ball
past participlecalled the ball
pastcalled the ball

Questions about call the ball

What does call the ball mean?
Call the ball means when landing on a US aircraft carrier: to sight the lights from the multi-colored optical landing system that shows a pilot to be on the correct approach path or how to correct the approach path.
What part of speech is call the ball?
Call the ball is a verb.
What is the past tense of call the ball?
The past tense of call the ball is called the ball.

Words near call the ball in the dictionary

  1. call someone everything but a child of God
  2. call someone's bluff
  3. call someone's number
  4. call stack
  5. call stacks
  6. call the ball
  7. call the fire brigade
  8. call the fire department
  9. call the police
  10. call the question
  11. call the shots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: call the ball (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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