Word.ws English Dictionary

take one's football and go home

take one's football and go home is the alternative form of take one's ball and go home.

Meaning of take one's ball and go home

Verb

take one's ball and go home (third-person singular simple present takes one's ball and goes home, present participle taking one's ball and going home, simple past took one's ball and went home, past participle taken one's ball and gone home)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To cease participating in an activity that has turned to one's disadvantage, especially out of spite, or in a way that prevents others from participating as well.
    • In 1977 American auto industry leaders threatened to "take their ball and go home" by shutting down production of 1978 models unless they received yet a third delay in meeting the auto emission standards of the Clean Air Act.1978, "House Vote 13," In Common, Vol. 9, p. 52 (Google snippet view)

Forms of take one's football and go home

third-person singular presenttakes one's football and goes home
present participletaking one's football and going home
pasttook one's football and went home
past participletaken one's football and gone home

Questions about take one's football and go home

What is take one's football and go home the alternative form of?
Take one's football and go home is the alternative form of take one's ball and go home.

Words near take one's football and go home in the dictionary

  1. take one's custom elsewhere
  2. take one's ease
  3. take one's eye off the ball
  4. take one's eyes off
  5. take one's eyes off the ball
  6. take one's football and go home
  7. take one's half out of the middle
  8. take one's hat off to
  9. take one's hook
  10. take one's kit off
  11. take one's leave

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take one's football and go home (page history and authors); take one's ball and go home (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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