Word.ws English Dictionary

football

Syllables: foot·ballUK/ˈfʊt.bɔːl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈfɵt.boːl/

football noun: a sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.

football: a sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the...
Image: Hedavid, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

football (countable and uncountable, plural footballs)

  1. (general) A sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.
    • Roman and medieval football matches were more violent than any modern type of football.
    • [page 104] [T]he Footeball play, […] could not poſſibly haue grovvne to this greatnes, that it is novv at, not haue bene ſo much vſed, as it is in all places, if it had not had great helpes, both to health and ſtrength, […] [page 105] [T]he Footeball ſtrengtheneth and bravvneth the vvhole body, and...1581, Richard Mulcaster, “Of the Ball”, in Positions wherin Those Primitive Circvmstances be Examined, which are Necessarie for the Training Vp of Children, either for Skill in Their Booke, or Health...
  2. (countable) The ball used in any game called "football".
    • The player kicked the football.
    • Hans Moleman Production presents: Man getting hit by football.
  3. (Africa, Caribbean, New Zealand, South-Asia, UK, uncountable) Association football, also called soccer: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball.
    • Each team scored three goals when they played football.
    • “Our research has shown that heading is rare in youth football matches, so this guidance is a responsible development to our grassroots coaching without impacting the enjoyment that children of all ages take from playing the game.”2020 February 24, Jack Guy, “UK football authorities ban children from heading footballs in training”, in CNN
  4. (US, uncountable) American football: a game played on a field 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide in which two teams of 11 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
    • Each team scored two touchdowns when they played football.
    • According to Newsday, he took the ball to his team’s equipment staff, which then informed head coach Chuck Pagano, who told general manager Ryan Grigson, who told NFL director of football operations Mike Kensil, who told the officials on the field.2015 January 23, Ralph Ellis, “NFL says it’s looking into why footballs were deflated at Patriots game”, in CNN
  5. (Canada, uncountable) Canadian football: a game played on a field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide in which two teams of 12 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
    • They played football in the snow.
  6. (Australia, New-South-Wales, South, Southern, Tasmania, Western) Australian rules football.
    • The weekend after AFL football chief Simon Lethlean made it clear players who jumper punched or punched opponents in the stomach would most likely be suspended, Jones was charged with striking Hawthorn’s Luke Breust.2017 May 29, “Zak Jones fined for off-the-ball hit, escapes MRP suspension”, in Fox Footy, retrieved 25 Jul 2025
  7. (Ireland, uncountable) Gaelic football: a field game played with similar rules to hurling, but using hands and feet rather than a stick, and a ball, similar to, yet smaller than a soccer ball.
  8. (Australia, New Zealand) Any form of rugby.
    • There's another game of football and there's a gold team and Mum and Dad are both on it!2022, Joe Brumm, “The Decider”, in Bluey, spoken by Chucky
    1. (Australia, New-South-Wales, New Zealand, uncountable) rugby league.
    2. (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, uncountable, other parts of Australia) rugby union.
  9. (uncountable) Practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
    • Both teams played open, attacking football and in the first thirty minutes, the referee barely blew his whistle.2014 May 10, Novy Kapadia, The Football Fanatic’s Essential Guide Part 1: Origins to 1974, Hachette UK, →ISBN, page 15
    • Sloppy football continued after the first break, as the more composed Brunswick controlled the play by relying on the throw-pass: forty times to Williamstown's twenty-eight.2024 September 24, Xavier Fowler, Football War: The VFA and VFL's Battle for Supremacy 1930-1949, Melbourne Univ. Publishing, →ISBN
  10. (countable, figuratively) An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner
    • That budget item became a political football.
  11. (US, countable, slang) The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President.
    • The aide rides, along with the president's physician, in the “control car,” third in line in the motorcade. He is responsible for the football (or “black box” or “black bag”), a briefcase containing the codes and targeting information the president would require to order or authorize a nuclear...1994, Herbert L. Abrams, The President Has Been Shot: Confusion, Disability, and the 25th Amendment, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page 126
    • After the lunch broke, we walked to the Trump-Putin press conference, which started about 6 p.m. As Kelly observed to me at some point, there were now two military aides in the room, each carrying his country's nuclear football.2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 155

Verb

football (third-person singular simple present footballs, present participle footballing, simple past and past participle footballed)

  1. (intransitive, rare) To play football.
    • It was an announcement of the outbreak of what is now termed World War I. Some of us lads were footballing when we heard the news. It left us bewildered.1969, Alec Hugh Chisholm, The Joy of the Earth, page 358
    • You walked up our road, passed the elms that bordered our park until Dutch disease killed them in the early 1970s, diagonally crossed its field where we footballed, turned right at the drinking fountain and cattle trough […]2019, David Randall, Suburbia: A Far from Ordinary Place

football meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

football in Hindi

ball
फुटबाल phuṭbāl
association football
फ़ुटबॉल fuṭbŏl, फ़ुटबाल fuṭbāl, फुटबॉल phuṭbŏl, फुटबाल phuṭbāl, पैरगेंद pairgẽd

football in Tamil

association football
கால்பந்து kālpantu

football in Marathi

association football
फुटबॉल phuṭbŏl

football in Urdu

association football
فٹ بال fuṭ bāl, فٹبال fuṭbāl, گیندِ پا gend-e-pā
More languagesFewer languages
football in Bengali
ফুটবল phuṭbol
football in Telugu
ఫుట్ బాల్ phuṭ bāl
football in Malayalam
ഫുട്ബോൾ phuṭbōḷ, സോക്കർ sōkkaṟ
football in Kannada
ಸಾಕರ್ sākar, ಫುಟ್ಬಾಲ್ phuṭbāl
football in Punjabi
ਫੁਟਬਾਲ phuṭbāl, ਫ਼ੁਟਬਾਲ fuṭbāl
football in Gujarati
ફૂટબૉલ phūṭbŏl, પગદડો pagadḍo
football in Odia
ଫୁଟ୍ବଲ୍ phuṭbal
football in Sanskrit
पादकन्दुक pādakanduka, पादकन्दुकक्रीडा pādakandukakrīḍā
football in Sinhala
පාපන්දුව pāpanduwa
football in Nepali
फुटबल, फुटबलको
football in Pashto
فتبال fotbál, فوټبال foṭbãl
football in Tagalog
putbol
football in Arabic
كُرَة اَلْقَدَم kurat al-qadam
football in Malay
bola sepak, sepak bola
football in Indonesian
bola sepak, sepak bola
football in Persian
توپ فوتبال tup-e futbâl, فوتبال پایگوی futbâl
football in Thai
ฟุตบอล fút-bɔn
football in Vietnamese
bóng đá
football in Myanmar
ဘောလုံး bhau:lum:
Dhivehi
ފުޓްބޯލްް
Kashmiri
فُٹ بال fuṭ bāl

Examples of football in a sentence

  • The league said the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots used footballs that didn’t meet league specifications in the first half of the AFC championship game last Sunday.2015 January 23, Ralph Ellis, “NFL says it’s looking into why footballs were deflated at Patriots game”, in CNN:
  • And he said that the main candidate for the trauma was heading the footballs.2020 February 24, Jack Guy, “UK football authorities ban children from heading footballs in training”, in CNN:
  • He is responsible for the football (or “black box” or “black bag”), a briefcase containing the codes and targeting information the president would require to order or authorize a nuclear attack.1994, Herbert L. Abrams, The President Has Been Shot: Confusion, Disability, and the 25th Amendment, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, page...

All 40 example sentences with football

Synonyms of football

15 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of football

Forms of football

Noun
pluralfootballs
alternative form (dated)foot-ball
alternative form (dated)foot ball
Verb
third-person singular presentfootballs
present participlefootballing
past participlefootballed
pastfootballed

Plural of football: footballs

Origin of football

From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot + ball, because the ball was primarily manipulated with the feet in early versions of the game (though some modern varieties involve more handling than kicking). The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.

Words formed from football

Phrases with football

28 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about football

What does football mean?
Football means a sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.
What is football in Hindi?
Football in Hindi is फुटबाल (phuṭbāl), फ़ुटबॉल (fuṭbŏl), फ़ुटबाल (fuṭbāl). See Football meaning in Hindi.
How do you use football in a sentence?
The league said the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots used footballs that didn’t meet league specifications in the first half of the AFC championship game last Sunday.
What part of speech is football?
Football can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce football?
Football is pronounced /ˈfʊt.bɔːl/ (UK).
What is the plural of football?
The plural of football is footballs.

Words near football in the dictionary

  1. footages
  2. footbag
  3. footbagger
  4. footbaggers
  5. footbags
  6. football
  7. football bar
  8. football bars
  9. football club
  10. football clubs
  11. football field

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: football (page history and authors); ଫୁଟ୍ବଲ୍ (Odia) (page history and authors); football (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-au-football.oga.

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