Football is the game of eleven players a side kicking a round ball into a goal. Play football, a football match, football boots.
It is the most watched sport in the world, and the modern rules come from the Football Association's code of 1863, which is where the word soccer comes from — an Oxford clipping of Association. In America, football means the gridiron game entirely. Note that the name is old and simply describes a ball played with the feet, as against the handling games.
1nounfootballThe game of eleven a side kicking a ball into a goal.
“The boys play football in the park every Saturday.”
2nounitselfThe ball itself.
“He kicked the football over the fence into the neighbour's garden.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
football is a sport.
Also accepted in games: soccer
Middle English fotbal is foot plus ball, named because the ball was played with the feet rather than carried. Soccer is a clipping of Association football, made at Oxford in the 1880s.
Middle English
fotbal
English, today
football
From Middle English fotbal. From Middle English fotbal, footbal, equivalent to foot + ball, because the ball was primarily manipulated with the feet in early versions of the game (though some modern varieties involve more handling than kicking). The name for the briefcase is a play on “dropkick”, the code name of an early version of the nuclear war plan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA