Word.ws English Dictionary

slowball

slowball noun: a pitch that is not a fastball or curveball; often a change-up.

Noun

slowball (plural slowballs)

  1. A pitch that is not a fastball or curveball; often a change-up.
  2. Steady, cautionary behavior as a delaying tactic.
    • “We imagine that the Russians and the Chinese are going to play slowball here,” said a senior official involved in the sanctions talks.2007 July 1, Jim Rutenberg, “Bush to Urge Putin to Aid in Pressuring Iran”, in New York Times
    • But he says the company is dragging its feet and threatened to use his subpoena power to get them moving. “They’re trying to play slowball,” he said of Google.2011 July 2, Deena Winter, “AG to Google: Clean up YouTube”, in Nebraska Watchdog, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016
  3. An easy or obvious target.
    • Remember: In work problems, use your common sense to narrow down answer choices! Now we're going to throw a "slowball" at you.1998, Mark Alan Stewart, Frederick J. O'Toole, Arco's Teach Yourself to Beat the GRE in 24 Hours, Arco, →ISBN
    • The interviewer nodded sympathetically. “Why do you think he would react so harshly?” A slowball question he hoped she would knock out of the park from a pro-abortion perspective.2009, Tom Cavenagh, A Matter of Truth, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 150

Verb

slowball (third-person singular simple present slowballs, present participle slowballing, simple past and past participle slowballed)

  1. To pitch a slowball.
  2. To delay something for personal advantage.
    • A prolonged study is frequently a method of slowballing an investigation until the Senators or Congress who are interested pass from the political scene.1965, United States, Congress, United States. Congress. Joint Economic Committee, Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Joint Economic Committee
    • As one senior U.S. military observer stated: "They are stonewalling us and slowballing us."1996, Tae-Hwan Kwak, Edward A. Olsen, The Major Powers of Northeast Asia: Seeking Peace and Security, Lynne Rienner Publishers, →ISBN, page 170

Examples of slowball in a sentence

  • The opening for a milk-beast related play on the name Lady Angus was a nice hanging slowball, but Keeler bit his tongue.2014, James Wittenbach, Worlds Apart Book 10: Eventide, Booktango, →ISBN:
  • And if some guy is dipping into the funds or taking bribes or slowballing things, those people should be exposed.2010, J. DAVID BUTLER, THE WATER BALL: A story of faith and enduring love, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:

Forms of slowball

Noun
pluralslowballs
Verb
third-person singular presentslowballs
present participleslowballing
past participleslowballed
pastslowballed

Origin of slowball

From slow + ball.

Questions about slowball

What does slowball mean?
Slowball means a pitch that is not a fastball or curveball; often a change-up.
How do you use slowball in a sentence?
The opening for a milk-beast related play on the name Lady Angus was a nice hanging slowball, but Keeler bit his tongue.
What part of speech is slowball?
Slowball can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of slowball?
The plural of slowball is slowballs.

Words near slowball in the dictionary

  1. Slowaris
  2. slowass
  3. slowback
  4. slowbacks
  5. slowbalization
  6. slowball
  7. slowballed
  8. slowballing
  9. slowballs
  10. slowcoach
  11. slowcoaches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slowball (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:

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