softball

1926: soft +‎ ball. Compare hardball.

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softball (countable and uncountable, plural softballs)

1. (sports) A game similar to baseball but played with a larger and softer ball which can be thrown overhand or underhand.
   • 1996, Andrew Heller, Come Heller High Water, →ISBN, page 55:

     This will give you someone with whom you can trade softball complaints, which any veteran game-goer will tell you is the key to a good time.

2. (sports) The ball used to play the sport.
3. (by analogy) A question designed to be easy to answer.
   • 2004 October 9, James Bennett, “In a Disguised Gym, Softballs and Political Drama”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Each man got his share of softballs on Friday night. But for 90 minutes in a dressed-up basketball arena at Washington University, the two candidates were also forced to address the kind of questions they get rarely if ever on the campaign trail: from voters who doubted them and maybe did not even like them very much.

Unadapted borrowing from English softball.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsoftboːl/, [ˈs̠o̞f.t̪bo̞ːl]
• Rhymes: -oftboːl
• Hyphenation^(key): soft‧ball

softball

1. softball

• soft-ball, soft ball

Borrowed from English softball.

softball m (countable and uncountable, plural softballs)

1. (sports) softball (“sport”): a variant of baseball
2. (sports) softball (“ball”): a ball used in the sport of softball

Unadapted borrowing from English softball.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɔvd.bɔl/
• Rhymes: -ɔvdbɔl
• Syllabification: soft‧ball

softball m inan (related adjective softballowy)

1. softball (game similar to baseball but played with a larger and softer ball which can be thrown overhand or underhand)

• softball in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• softbol

Unadapted borrowing from English softball.

softball m (uncountable)

1. softball (a sport similar to baseball)

Unadapted borrowing from English softball.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsofdbol/ [ˈsovð̞.β̞ol], /ˈsofbol/ [ˈsov.β̞ol]
• Rhymes: -ofdbol, -ofbol

softball m (uncountable)

1. softball

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.