ball
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bawlIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɔl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
A quantity of string, thread, etc., wound into a spherical shape.
A compact mass
mathematics
Homologue or analogue of a disk in the Euclidean plane.
A roundish, protuberant portion of some part of the body.
A ball game played with a bat and ball between two teams of nine players; teams take turns at bat trying to score runs
verb
transitive
To form or wind into a ball.
transitive
To punish by affixing a ball and chain.
intransitive
To operate (a vehicle) at high speed (whether balls-out, balls to the wall, or ballin' the jack, each of which comes ultimately from ball via a different route).
transitive
Of bees: to kill (a wasp) by surrounding it in large numbers so as to raise its body heat.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
Used this way, ball is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ball
- “The ball travelled 90 mph on his serve.”noun
- “He played with his rubber ball in the bathtub.”noun
Share your sentence
Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Any valve that checks flow by the seating of a ball.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A facility in which ball games are played (especially baseball games).
A pen that has a small metal ball as the point of transfer of ink to paper.
A pen that has a small metal ball as the point of transfer of ink to paper.
Use This Word
See how this word sounds in a real sentence.
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Knowing “ball” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.
Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.