Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Spitball |
SpitballNoun1. A projectile made by chewing a piece of paper and shaping it into a sphere. 2. An illegal pitch in which a foreign substance (spit or Vaseline) is applied to the ball by the pitcher before he throws it. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "spitball" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1960. (references) |
Synonym: SpitballSynonym: spitter (n). (additional references) |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Spitball" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Spitball" is used about 2 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 2 | 245,945 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
spitball | 17 |
spitball throw | 9 |
baseball spitball | 5 |
pitch spitball | 2 |
pitcher spitball | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "spitball"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Hungarian | összerágott papírgalacsin. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 飛礫 (thrown rock), 紙礫 (paper pellet), 紙つぶて (paper pellet), ス"ード線 (lines drawn to represent motion, pomeranian, spear, spear fishing, speed controller, speed lines, spin, spin out, spin turn, spin-glass, spinning reel, spirit, spirits, spiritual, spiritualism, Spirochaeta, Spirulina). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | つぶて (throwing stones, thrown rock), かみつぶて (paper pellet), ス"ットボール . (various references) | |
Pig Latin | itballspay.(various references) | |
Russian | шарик (ball, globule, pellet, spherule, wad). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "spitball": spitballs. (additional references) | |
| |
"Spitball" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: shiteball. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "spitball" (pronounced spi"tbô'l) |
| 4 | -t b ô' l | basketball, fastball, football, meatball, racquetball, softball. |
| 3 | -b ô' l | blackball, butterball, cannonball, eyeball, fireball, handball, hardball, softball, stickball, mothball, oddball, pinball, screwball, snowball, trackball, volleyball. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-i-l-l-p-s-t" | |
-2 letters: pastil, pibals, plaits, spital, tallis. | |
-3 letters: alist, bails, baits, balls, basil, bills, blast, blats, blips, lapis, lilts, litas, pails, palls, pibal, pills, pitas, plait, plats, slipt, spail, spait, spall, spill, spilt, splat, split, stall, still, tails, tapis, tills. | |
-4 letters: ails, aits, albs, alit, alls, alps, alts, bail, bait, ball, bals, baps, bast, bats. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-i-l-l-p-s-t" | |
+1 letter: spitballs. | |
+2 letters: ballpoints. | |
+3 letters: baptismally, basipetally. | |
+4 letters: boilerplates, diploblastic, plausibility, pliabilities, postbiblical. | |
+5 letters: bipropellants, culpabilities, lymphoblastic, palpabilities, placabilities, playabilities, triploblastic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
