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)
- 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 present | takes one's football and goes home |
|---|---|
| present participle | taking one's football and going home |
| past | took one's football and went home |
| past participle | taken 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
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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Cite this entry: “take one's football and go home.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/take_one%27s_football_and_go_home. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
