football

Etymology

From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot + ball, which may refer to the act of kicking a ball with the feet. The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.

noun

1. (general) A sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.
   Roman and medieval football matches were more violent than any modern type of football.
2. (UK, uncountable) Association football: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball. Known as soccer in Canada, the United States, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.
   Each team scored three goals when they played football.
3. (US, uncountable) American football: a game played on a field of 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide in which two teams of 11 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
   Each team scored two touchdowns when they played football.
4. (Canada, uncountable) Canadian football: a game played on a field of 110 yards long and 65 yards wide in which two teams of 12 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
   They played football in the snow.
5. (Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, southern New South Wales, uncountable) Australian rules football.
6. (Ireland, uncountable) Gaelic football: a field game played with similar rules to hurling, but using hands and feet rather than a stick, and a ball, similar to, yet smaller than a soccer ball.
7. (Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, uncountable) rugby league.
8. (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, uncountable) rugby union.
9. (countable) The ball used in any game called "football".
   The player kicked the football.
10. (uncountable) Practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
11. (figurative, countable) An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner
    That budget item became a political football.
12. (US military slang, countable) The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans which is always near the US President.
    Coordinate term: Cheget
    The aide rides, along with the president's physician, in the “control car,” third in line in the motorcade. He is responsible for the football (or “black box” or “black bag”), a briefcase containing the codes and targeting information the president would require to order or authorize a nuclear attack. 1994, Herbert L. Abrams, The President Has Been Shot: Confusion, Disability, and the 25th Amendment, Stanford University Press, page 126

verb

1. (intransitive, rare) To play football.
   It was an announcement of the outbreak of what is now termed World War I. Some of us lads were footballing when we heard the news. It left us bewildered. 1969, Alec Hugh Chisholm, The Joy of the Earth, page 358
   You walked up our road, passed the elms that bordered our park until Dutch disease killed them in the early 1970s, diagonally crossed its field where we footballed, turned right at the drinking fountain and cattle trough […] 2019, David Randall, Suburbia: A Far from Ordinary Place