Word.ws English Dictionary

red ball

red ball noun: a high-profile high-priority case which draws political or media attention.

Noun

red ball (countable and uncountable, plural red balls)

  1. (US, slang) A high-profile high-priority case which draws political or media attention.
    • A police-involved shooting is by definition a red ball and, by definition, a red ball requires every warm body.1991, David Simon, Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, →ISBN, →OL
    • The only exception to that edict was the Eighth, the French Quarter district, since any homicide at the core of the tourist area was such a potential red ball.2005, Eileen Dreyer, Sinners and Saints, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, →OL
  2. (metonymically, uncountable) First-class cricket, as distinct from limited overs cricket (or "white ball". Mainly used to play tests.
    • Australia is scheduled to play five red ball matches in two weeks.
    • Or are the red-ball and white-ball games diverging to the extent that it is possible to envisage a future where they are, to all intents and purposes, different sports?2017 January 28, Jonathan Liew, “To cling together or drift apart? Red and white-ball cricket facing a divided future”, in The Daily Telegraph, London
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see red, ball.

Adjective

red ball (not comparable)

  1. Of or related to priority freight or the trains that carry it.
    • Perishable freight, carloads of package freight or merchandise, oils, etc., are designated as Red Ball freight.1905 August 18, “The Frisco System of Handling Time Freight”, in The Railroad Gazette, volume 39, number 7, page 158
    • A special red ball card, which is a familiar sight to every employe—the large red ball on the white card—is attached to every car of red ball freight, one on each side, by the agent at the red ball billing station. A special red ball envelope accompanies each car to its destination.1910 August, Chalmers L. Pancoast, “Red Ball System of Handling Freight”, in Santa Fe Employes' Magazine, volume 4, number 9, page 28

Forms of red ball

pluralred balls

Origin of red ball

* ("high-profile high-priority" sense) From a routing system on the Santa Fe Railroad in the early 1900s. Fast freight trains which were to receive priority routing were marked with placards depicting a red disc, and were called "red ball" trains.

Questions about red ball

What does red ball mean?
Red ball means a high-profile high-priority case which draws political or media attention.
What part of speech is red ball?
Red ball can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of red ball?
The plural of red ball is red balls.

Words near red ball in the dictionary

  1. red backs
  2. red bag
  3. red bag deliveries
  4. red bag delivery
  5. red bags
  6. red ball
  7. red balls
  8. red banana
  9. red bananas
  10. red band
  11. red bandfish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: red 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-red ball.ogg.

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