"on the ball" meaning in English

See on the ball in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: En-au-on the ball.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} on the ball, {{en-PP}} on the ball
  1. (idiomatic) Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-xyVwwfGy
  2. (sports) Being in control of the ball. Categories (topical): Sports Related terms: off the ball, onballer, on the stick
    Sense id: en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-~O59NYea Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 58 31 Topics: hobbies, lifestyle, sports
  3. (Australian rules football) Playing as a midfielder. Categories (topical): Australian rules football
    Sense id: en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-GbAbGeKL

Download JSON data for on the ball meaning in English (2.7kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "on the ball",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "on the ball",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If I had been more on the ball I would have asked when he called me.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-xyVwwfGy",
      "links": [
        [
          "Alert",
          "alert"
        ],
        [
          "active",
          "active"
        ],
        [
          "attentive",
          "attentive"
        ],
        [
          "on top of",
          "on top of"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Sports",
          "orig": "en:Sports",
          "parents": [
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "11 58 31",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC",
          "text": "...Rovers were also aided by some poor defending from West Brom, whose lapses at the back undid their excellent work on the ball and condemned Roberto di Matteo's Baggies side to a third straight defeat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Being in control of the ball."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-~O59NYea",
      "links": [
        [
          "sports",
          "sports"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sports) Being in control of the ball."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "33 66 1",
          "word": "off the ball"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "33 66 1",
          "word": "onballer"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "33 66 1",
          "word": "on the stick"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Australian rules football",
          "orig": "en:Australian rules football",
          "parents": [
            "Football",
            "Ball games",
            "Sports",
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Playing as a midfielder."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_the_ball-en-prep_phrase-GbAbGeKL",
      "links": [
        [
          "Australian rules football",
          "Australian rules football"
        ],
        [
          "midfielder",
          "midfielder"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "Australian rules football",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australian rules football) Playing as a midfielder."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-on the ball.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/92/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "on the ball"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English prepositional phrases",
    "English terms with audio links"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "on the ball",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "on the ball",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "off the ball"
    },
    {
      "word": "onballer"
    },
    {
      "word": "on the stick"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If I had been more on the ball I would have asked when he called me.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Alert",
          "alert"
        ],
        [
          "active",
          "active"
        ],
        [
          "attentive",
          "attentive"
        ],
        [
          "on top of",
          "on top of"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Alert, active, or attentive; on top of things."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Sports"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC",
          "text": "...Rovers were also aided by some poor defending from West Brom, whose lapses at the back undid their excellent work on the ball and condemned Roberto di Matteo's Baggies side to a third straight defeat.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Being in control of the ball."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sports",
          "sports"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sports) Being in control of the ball."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "hobbies",
        "lifestyle",
        "sports"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "en:Australian rules football"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Playing as a midfielder."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Australian rules football",
          "Australian rules football"
        ],
        [
          "midfielder",
          "midfielder"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "Australian rules football",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australian rules football) Playing as a midfielder."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-on the ball.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/92/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/En-au-on_the_ball.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "on the ball"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.