A ball game is a game played with a ball. Someone who plays a ball game is known as a ballplayer.
There are many popular games or sports involving some type of ball or similar object. These games can be grouped by the general objective of the game, sometimes indicating a common origin either of a game itself or of its basic idea:
- Bat-and-ball games, such as baseball, cricket and golf.
- Two-goal games, such as basketball and all forms of football, hockey or lacrosse.
- Volleying games, such as volleyball and tennis.
- "Target" games, such as bowling and lotball.
- The original "Ball Game", whose objective is to keep the ball constantly moving but not allowing it to bounce twice upon the ground without being struck between bounces.
- And so on.
Popular ball games from around the world include:
- Badminton
- Baseball (in the United States, a game of baseball is referred to as a "ballgame")
- Basketball
- Basque pilota
- :Jai alai
- Billiards (including snooker, eight ball and pool variations)
- Bocce
- Boules
- Bowling
- Bowls
- Canoe polo
- Carpetball
- Cricket (see cricket ball)
- Croquet
- Dodgeball
- Footbag
- Football:
- Footballtennis
- Four square
- Golf (see golf ball)
- Handball:
- Hockey:
- Hurling
- Indiaca
- Juggling
- Lacrosse
- Lotball
- The Mesoamerican ballgame
- Netball
- Newcomb ball
- PaddleBall
- Paintball
- Pelota mixteca
- Pétanque
- Podex
- Polo
- Quidditch (fictional game)
- Racquetball
- Rapid Ball
- Sepak Takraw
- Shinty
- Skee ball
- Squash
- Stickball
- Stickball (Native American)
- Table football (Foosball)
- Tchoukball
- Tee Ball
- Tetherball
- Tennis
- Tennis Polo/Toccer
- Ulama
- Valencian pilota
- Volleyball
- Water basketball
- Water polo
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Last updated on Wednesday June 18, 2008 at 08:38:37 PDT (GMT -0700)
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Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials.
Etymology
The first known use of the word ball in English in the sense of a globular body that is played with was in 1205 in in the phrase, "" The word came from the Middle English bal (inflected as ball-e, -es, in turn from Old Norse böllr (compare Old Swedish baller, and Swedish boll) from Proto-Germanic ballu-z, (whence probably Middle High German bal, ball-es, Middle Dutch bal), a cognate with Old High German ballo, pallo, Middle High German balle from Proto-Germanic *ballon (weak masculine), and Old High German ballâ, pallâ, Middle High German balle, Proto-Germanic *ballôn (weak feminine). No Old English representative of any of these is known. (The answering forms in Old English would have been beallu, -a, -e -- compare bealluc, ballock.) If ball- was native in Germanic, it may have been a cognate with the Latin foll-is in sense of a "thing blown up or inflated." In the later Middle English spelling balle the word coincided graphically with the French balle "ball" and "bale" which has hence been erroneously assumed to be its source. French balle (but not boule) is assumed to be of Germanic origin, itself, however.Images
See also
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Last updated on Thursday July 24, 2008 at 12:41:29 PDT (GMT -0700)
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