Word.ws English Dictionary

Chinese home run

Chinese home run noun: a home run hit to the minimum distance possible, usually just over the outfield fence closest to home plate.

Noun

Chinese home run (plural Chinese home runs)

  1. (US, dated, derogatory, slang) A home run hit to the minimum distance possible, usually just over the outfield fence closest to home plate.
    • Chinese home run: 1. A derogatory term for a home run hit over the portion of the outfield fence closest to home plate, often one that lands just inside (or hits) the foul pole in a ballpark with small dimensions.2011, Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, W.W. Norton & Co., pages 182-184
    Synonyms:
    Chinese homer
  2. (New-England, US, slang) A foul ball hit high and far, usually over the back of the plate.
    • Hal was too small to play, but he sat far out in foul territory, sucking on his blueberry Popsicle and chasing what the big kids called "Chinese home runs." (Cited at Dickson, above. He further quotes correspondence from King that indicates that his understanding of this term was that it applied to...1985, Stephen King, “The Monkey”, in Skeleton Crew, Putnam, page 163

Synonyms of Chinese home run

Forms of Chinese home run

pluralChinese home runs

Origin of Chinese home run

Either from the supposed tendency of early 20th-century Chinese immigrants to the United States to perform minimally acceptable work for minimal compensation, or a possible corruption of Chaney's home run from such a hit by a batter with the same name that ended a game when the ball could not be found.

Questions about Chinese home run

What does Chinese home run mean?
Chinese home run means a home run hit to the minimum distance possible, usually just over the outfield fence closest to home plate.
What part of speech is Chinese home run?
Chinese home run is a noun.
What is the plural of Chinese home run?
The plural of Chinese home run is Chinese home runs.

Words near Chinese home run in the dictionary

  1. Chinese hedgehogs
  2. Chinese helicopter
  3. Chinese helicopters
  4. Chinese hibiscus
  5. Chinese hibiscuses
  6. Chinese home run
  7. Chinese home runs
  8. Chinese homer
  9. Chinese homers
  10. Chinese honeysuckle
  11. Chinese honeysuckles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese home run (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: “Chinese home run.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chinese_home_run. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.