Cornerback

How to spell cornerback

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce cornerback

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cornerback mean?

1. nounA defensive player in American or Canadian football who lines up near the sideline and covers receivers.

Cornerback in a sentence

• The cornerback intercepted the pass near the sideline.

• The team drafted a fast cornerback to defend against deep throws.

Where does cornerback come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound, built straightforwardly from 'corner' and 'back', and it belongs to the vocabulary of American football. The first element, 'corner', traces back through Old French 'cornere' to the Latin 'cornu', which literally meant 'horn' and came to describe a projecting angle or point. The second element, 'back', is a native Old English word, 'bæc', referring to the rear of the body and, by extension, to a player stationed behind the front line of scrimmage. In football terminology a 'back' is any defensive or offensive player who lines up away from the line, and the 'corner' part marks the player who patrols the outer edges of the defensive formation, covering the flanks of the field. The term came into use during the twentieth century as defensive roles became specialised, and it is now firmly established in American and Canadian gridiron football. Because it is a transparent compound of two familiar words, the spelling rarely causes trouble for adults who recognise it.

How the word is built

• corner (the angle where two lines meet, from Latin cornu 'horn')
• back (the defensive player positioned behind the line, from Old English bæc)