Word.ws English Dictionary

knuckle ball

knuckle ball is the alternative form of knuckleball.

Meaning of knuckleball

Noun

knuckleball (plural knuckleballs)

  1. A pitch thrown with the ball gripped on the fingertips and released with no rotation, which travels over an unpredictable path to the plate due to microturbulence in the air.
    • Even the pitcher doesn't know where his knuckleball is going.
    Synonyms:
    flutterball, floater, dancer, butterfly ball, ghostball, bug
  2. A type of delivery where a fast bowler holds the ball on the knuckles of the index and middle fingers.
  3. (figuratively, informal) An event that is hard to predict.
    • Our vendor keeps throwing us knuckleballs.

See all 4 meanings of knuckleball

Forms of knuckle ball

pluralknuckle balls

Questions about knuckle ball

What is knuckle ball the alternative form of?
Knuckle ball is the alternative form of knuckleball.

Words near knuckle ball in the dictionary

  1. knuckerhole
  2. knuckerholes
  3. knuckers
  4. Knucklas
  5. knuckle
  6. knuckle ball
  7. knuckle bow
  8. knuckle bows
  9. knuckle children
  10. knuckle down
  11. knuckle dragger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knuckle ball (page history and authors); knuckleball (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: “knuckle ball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/knuckle_ball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.