1. sports A game played by two teams of 11 players each on a rectangular, 100-yard-long field with goal lines and goal posts at either end, the object being to gain possession of the ball and advance it in running or passing plays across the opponent's goal line or kick it through the air between the opponent's goal posts.
2. sports the inflated oval ball used in this game.
3. chiefly british rugby.
4. chiefly british soccer.
5. chiefly british the ball used in rugby or soccer.
6. informal A problem or issue that is discussed among groups or persons without being settled: the issue of tax reform became a political football.

1. association football: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball. known as soccer in the us
2. american football: a game in which two teams attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
3. canadian football: a game played on a wide field in which two teams attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.
4. australian rules football.
5. gaelic football: a field game played with similar rules to hurling, but using hands and feet rather than a stick, and a ball, similar to, yet smaller than a soccer ball.
6. rugby league.
7. rugby union
8. the ball used in any game called "football".
9. practise of these particular games, or techniques used in them.
10. an item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner
11. the nickname of the leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans, which is always near the us president.

1. an inflated ball to be kicked in sport, usually made in india rubber, or a bladder incased in leather.
2. the game played with a football{1}, by two opposing teams of players moving the ball between goals at opposite ends of a rectangular playing field. outside the united states football refers to soccer, and in england, also to rugby, but in the united states the shape of the ball and the rules of the game are different.
3. soccer or rugby.
4. something which is treated in a rough manner, usually as part of a dispute.

1. A ball consisting originally of an inflated bladder, now of a hollow globe of india-rubber or of heavy canvas saturated with rubber, cased in leather, round or oval in shape, and designed to be driven by the foot in the game called by the same name. see def. 2.
2. A game played with such a ball by two parties of players on a level plot of ground, at each end of which is a goal through or beyond which the players strive to drive the ball.
3. figuratively, an object or a person subjected to hard usage or to many vicissitudes or changes of condition: as, he was the foot-ball of fortune.

1. any of various games played with a ball (round or oval) in which two teams try to kick or carry or propel the ball into each other's goal
2. the inflated oblong ball used in playing american football