handball
handball noun: a ball held in, or thrown with, the hand, especially one used for one of the various games in later senses, below.
Noun
handball (countable and uncountable, plural handballs)
- 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
- The hollow rubber ball squeezed to produce spray from a perfume bottle or other atomizer.
- Any of various traditional ball games played outside between two goals often at a considerable distance from each other.
- 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).
- 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.
- A schoolyard game in which a bouncy ball is struck with the hand, played on an improvised court on the asphalt or pavement.
- An act of passing a football by holding it with one hand and hitting it with the other.
- The offence of a player other than the goalkeeper touching the ball with the hand or arm on the field during play.
- It was a dramatic finish to an absorbing, fast-paced game but Blackburn will be deeply unhappy with referee Anthony Taylor as Nzonzi's handball was harsh.2011 October 29, Neil Johnston, “Norwich 3 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC Sport
Verb
handball (third-person singular simple present handballs, present participle handballing, simple past and past participle handballed)
- To manually load or unload a container, trailer, or to otherwise manually move bulk goods (often on pallets) from one type of transport receptacle to another.
- To illegally touch the ball with the hand or arm.
- If the defender handballs in the penalty area, a penalty is awarded.
- Synonyms:
- handle
- To (legally) pass a football by holding it with one hand and hitting it with the other.
- Meanwhile, you can introduce the basic concept of Aussie rules through a game like lineball, a lead-up game introduced in the basketball section of chapter 10, but with the ball handballed, not thrown.2001, Jerry R. Thomas, Alan G. Launder, Jack K. Nelson, Play Practice: The Games Approach to Teaching and Coaching Sports, page 111
- An obvious way in which football has changed over the last decade or two has been in the use of handballing.2005, Andrew McLeod, Trevor D. Jaques, Australian Football: Steps to Success, page 9
- To pass responsibility for a task or problem to someone else, often to avoid dealing with an undesirable task or a tricky question.
- Now six months into the role I have come to learn that the boss’s idea of empowering and delegating is actually handballing or passing off tasks that they actually should be performing themselves.2022 August 26, Jonathan Rivett, “My boss is handballing rather than delegating tasks. What should I do?”, in The Sydney Morning Herald
- The shortage has taken time to develop and despite the government trying to handball' the problem to the states, it has happened on its watch.2005 March 17, Bob Hogg, “Paradox of the Howard era”, in Australian Financial Review
- Synonyms:
- offload
- To insert a hand into someone's anus.
handball meaning in Hindi, Kannada, Arabic and Vietnamese
handball in Hindi
- team sport
- हेन्डबोल henḍabol
handball in Kannada
- ಕೈಚೆಂಡು, ಎಸೆಚೆಂಡು, ಕೈಚೆಂಡಾಟ, ಎಸೆಚೆಂಡಾಟ
handball in Arabic
- team sport
- كُرَة يَد kurat yad
handball in Vietnamese
- team sport
- banh để liệng, bóng ném
- football offence
- lỗi chạm tay
Examples of handball in a sentence
- On only 8 occasions during the entire match did players who had marked the ball decide not to walk slowly and purposefully back and take their kick, but instead play on by handballing to a team mate.2009, John P. Devaney, Full Points Footy: Encyclopedia of Australian Football Clubs, page 246:
- I am finding that she's a difficult patient in more ways than one! for that reason I'll handball her off to our senior podiatrist if symptoms persist.2009 June 9, Matt Kimball, “Help with diagnosis and management of localised dorsal midfoot pain.”, in Podiatry Arena:
- I might handball that question to Dr Parkinson or somebody who has a better view of the morphology of the portfolio than I do.2006 February 15, Senator Brandis, Economics Legislation Committee Estimates (Senate), page 12:
Synonyms of handball
- handle
- offload
- European handball
- Olympic handball
- team handball
- sport involving bouncing a ball off a wall
Forms of handball
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | handballs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | handballs |
| present participle | handballing |
| past participle | handballed |
| past | handballed |
Origin of handball
From hand + ball.
Words formed from handball
Phrases with handball
Questions about handball
- What does handball mean?
- Handball means a ball held in, or thrown with, the hand, especially one used for one of the various games in later senses, below.
- What is handball in Hindi?
- Handball in Hindi is हेन्डबोल (henḍabol). See Handball meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use handball in a sentence?
- On only 8 occasions during the entire match did players who had marked the ball decide not to walk slowly and purposefully back and take their kick, but instead play on by handballing to a team mate.
- What part of speech is handball?
- Handball can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of handball?
- The plural of handball is handballs.
Words near handball in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: handball (page history and authors); handball (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-handball.ogg, EN-AU ck1 handball.ogg.
Cite this entry: “handball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.