hand ball

Noun

handball (countable and uncountable, plural handballs)

1. A ball held in, or thrown with, the hand, especially one used for one of the various games in later senses, below.
   • Cranly took a small grey handball from his pocket and began to examine it closely, turning it over and over.1916, James Joyce, chapter V, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC
2. (archaic) The hollow rubber ball squeezed to produce spray from a perfume bottle or other atomizer.
3. Any of various traditional ball games played outside between two goals often at a considerable distance from each other.
4. Any of several games similar to fives, in which a ball is hit by the hand against a wall or within a walled court (the chief variants now being Gaelic handball and American handball).
5. (uncountable) A sport played on a rectangular court between two teams of seven players each, using a small ball struck only with the hands; team handball.
6. (Australia, uncountable) A schoolyard game in which a bouncy ball is struck with the hand, played on an improvised court on the asphalt or pavement.

See all 13 meanings of handball