softball

«softball» in Mova's school dictionary: a team game like baseball, played on a smaller field with… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (softball, uncountable; a softball, softballs)

meaning for a pupil

1) Softball is a team game like baseball, played on a smaller field with a bigger ball that is pitched underarm. tree →

2) A softball is the ball used in this game. tree →

sense in the lessons

Very popular in the USA, Canada and Australia, in schools and parks; in PE lessons pupils learn to bat, catch, throw and run the bases. Phrases: «play softball», «softball team», «softball game», «fast-pitch softball».

examples

• We play softball in PE on Fridays. tree →
• My sister is the pitcher on her softball team. tree →
• The softball game was cancelled because of rain. tree →
• A softball is bigger than a baseball. tree →
• He hit the softball over the fence. tree →
• Our team scored 7 runs in the softball match. tree →
• Wear a helmet when you bat in softball. tree →

note

Uncountable as a game («play softball»), countable as a ball («a softball»). Trap: a softball is not actually soft; it is hard and can hurt, so use gloves and helmets. In word problems, runs are the points: add runs from each inning for the total.

In the corpora

• In baseball and softball the batter wears a helmet and drops the bat after hitting, never throwing it.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «softball» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.