Netball
nounA team sport, played mainly by women, in which players score by throwing a ball through a high ring with a net.
How to spell netball
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce netball
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does netball mean?
- nounA team sport, played mainly by women, in which players score by throwing a ball through a high ring with a net.
Netball in a sentence
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She played netball for her county throughout school.
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The local netball league meets at the leisure centre every Thursday.
Where does netball come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Netball is a straightforward compound of two old, plain English words, both ultimately Germanic. 'Net' descends from the Old English 'net', a word for a meshed snare or web used to trap fish or birds, and it shares ancestry with similar words across the Germanic languages. 'Ball', meaning a round object used in play, came into English from a Germanic root as well, related to forms meaning a rounded swelling or sphere. The sport itself is young: it grew out of an early adaptation of basketball for women in the 1890s, and the name simply describes the goal net into which the ball is thrown. Because both halves are everyday words joined without any awkward join or silent letter, the spelling holds no real trap; it is written exactly as it sounds.
How the word is built
- net (a mesh barrier)
- ball (a round playing object); a transparent compound noun
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