Word.ws English Dictionary

playing ball

playing ball is the present participle and gerund of play ball.

Meaning of play ball

Verb

play ball (third-person singular simple present plays ball, present participle playing ball, simple past and past participle played ball)

  1. (idiomatic) To start anything tumultuous.
  2. (idiomatic) To work together; to cooperate.
    • The politicians refused to play ball with the journalists.
  3. An expression used at the beginning of a game of baseball or softball.

Questions about playing ball

What is playing ball the present participle and gerund of?
Playing ball is the present participle and gerund of play ball.

Words near playing ball in the dictionary

  1. playing along
  2. playing around
  3. playing at
  4. playing away
  5. playing back
  6. playing ball
  7. playing big
  8. playing booty
  9. playing both sides against the middle
  10. playing by ear
  11. playing by the rules

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: playing ball (page history and authors); play 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.

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