Word.ws English Dictionary

dryer ball

dryer ball noun: a ball-shaped object used in a tumble dryer to accelerate the drying process, soften clothes or reduce static electricity as a substitute for fabric softener.

dryer ball: a ball-shaped object used in a tumble dryer to accelerate the drying process, soften clothes or...
Image: Reg Natarajan from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

dryer ball (plural dryer balls)

  1. A ball-shaped object used in a tumble dryer to accelerate the drying process, soften clothes or reduce static electricity as a substitute for fabric softener.
    • He sees dryer balls in the dryer, grabs one and runs out of the room. His mother catches him, takes the dryer ball and throws it in the dryer. He grabs another dryer ball and runs away but his little legs are no match for his mother's. She takes the dryer ball and throws it in the dryer. It becomes...2023, Venrah Ali, For the Love of a Mother, Grandmother, Friend, FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 136
    • To make one dryer ball requires one skein of 100 percent wool yarn because to be effective each dryer ball needs to be weighty. It needs enough heft to bounce around in the dryer as it fluffs and separate the folds of the wet laundry.2018 February 14, Mary Hunt, “All you need to know to make your own wool dryer balls”, in Star-Herald, page 10B

Examples of dryer ball in a sentence

  • He sees dryer balls in the dryer, grabs one and runs out of the room.2023, Venrah Ali, For the Love of a Mother, Grandmother, Friend, FriesenPress, →ISBN, page 136:
  • The felted wool dryer ball is supposed to decrease drying time by up to 25 percent, as well as reduce static cling.2012 August 16, Sarah Miller, “Sustainable Laundry Tips”, in The Madisonian, page 16:

Forms of dryer ball

pluraldryer balls

Origin of dryer ball

From dryer + ball.

Questions about dryer ball

What does dryer ball mean?
Dryer ball means a ball-shaped object used in a tumble dryer to accelerate the drying process, soften clothes or reduce static electricity as a substitute for fabric softener.
How do you use dryer ball in a sentence?
He sees dryer balls in the dryer, grabs one and runs out of the room.
What part of speech is dryer ball?
Dryer ball is a noun.
What is the plural of dryer ball?
The plural of dryer ball is dryer balls.

Words near dryer ball in the dictionary

  1. drydown
  2. drydowns
  3. Drye
  4. DRYed
  5. dryer
  6. dryer ball
  7. dryer balls
  8. dryer buzzer
  9. dryer sheet
  10. dryer sheets
  11. dryerless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dryer 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dryer ball.wav.

Cite this entry: “dryer ball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dryer_ball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.