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patball

noun

Etymology

From pat + ball.

  1. derived from *bʰel-✻
  2. derived from *bʰélō✻
  3. inherited from *balluz✻
  4. derived from bǫllr
  5. inherited from *beall✻
  6. inherited from bal
  7. compounded as patball — “pat + ball”

Definitions

  1. A particular children's ball game played against a wall with a tennis ball.

  2. A back-and-forth situation.

    • Opposite him sat Peter Thorneycroft and the patball went on and on and on. It's as though one hadn't left off last July - the same sort of professional debating, two heavyweights in a clinch because neither wants to knock the other out […]

  3. The ball used in the game of patball.

  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. A pawn, a football.

      • Don't you know that your very best friend is being made somebody's patball?

The neighborhood

Derived

patballer

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for patball. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA