foul line
noun
Simple meaning
A line from which basketball players take penalty shots.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fowllynSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfaʊlˈlaɪn
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
basketball
A line from which basketball players take penalty shots
basketball
A line from which a player takes a free throw
baseballsoftball
One of the two lines on the edge of a field marking the area inside which a fair ball may be hit.
bowling
A line across a bowling alley that a bowler must not cross
bowling
A line between the lane and the approach, which the bowler must not cross.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A line from which basketball players take penalty shots
Used this way, foul line is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Sports
- News/reporting
- Everyday conversation
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.