meatball

meatball

English

Meatballs

Etymology

meat +‎ ball

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

meatball (plural meatballs)

1. A ball of minced or ground meat, seasoned and cooked.
   • 1894: Yearbook of Agriculture

     Meatballs may contain ground meat mixed with seasonings, breadcrumbs, mashed potatoes, rice, and liquid. The meat mixture is often shaped, browned. and simmered in a sauce for 30 to 45 minutes over low heat or in a 350° F. oven. During cooking the meat is basted with the sauce occasionally. Meatballs also may be fried in a pan or in deep fat.

   • 1996: Mrs. Miracle. Debbie Macomber. Pg. 101.

     I prefer spaghetti with meatballs instead the meat all crumbled in with the sauce.

2. (slang) A stupid person.
3. (baseball) An easy pitch to hit, especially thrown right down the middle of the plate.
   • 2020: "Oakland A’s faced all their nightmares in Game 3 and wrote a new ending" by Alex Hall, Athletics Nation

     And then. A 98.4 fastball on the inside half of the plate, ring him up, Strike 3, game over. It wasn’t a meatball like Terrence Long watched to finish 2003 ALDS Game 5, but it felt the same.

4. (aviation) An optical landing system.
   • 1961, Approach (volume 7)

     During a pitching deck recovery a pilot must average out the meatball oscillations at the ramp in an attempt to maintain his airplane on the desired glide slope.

5. (graphical user interface) A menu icon of three horizontal dots.

   Coordinate terms: meatball, kebab, hamburger, bento

Derived terms

• meatball flag
• meatball surgery

Descendants

• → Japanese: ミートボール
• → Korean: 미트볼 (miteubol)

Translations

meatball

Arabic: كُرَات اللَحْم‎ (kurāt al-laḥm) Hijazi Arabic: كُفْتة‎ f (kufta) Armenian: կոլոլակ (hy) (kololak) Azerbaijani: köfte (az), küftə (az) Basque: haragi-bola Belarusian: тэфтэлі (tefteli) Bulgarian: кюфте (bg) n (kjufte) Burmese: အသားဘောလုံး (a.sa:bhau:lum:) Catalan: mandonguilla (ca) f Cebuano: bolabola Chinese: Cantonese: 肉丸 (juk6 jyun2) Mandarin: 肉丸 (zh) (ròuwán) Dutch: gehaktbal (nl) f Esperanto: viandobulo Estonian: frikadell Finnish: lihapyörykkä (fi), lihapulla (fi) French: boulette (fr) f Galician: albóndega (gl) f Georgian: ხორცის ბურთი (xorcis burti) German: Fleischklößchen n, Fleischbällchen n, Frikadelle (de) f, Fleischpflanzl (de) n (Bavarian dialect), Klops (de) m (north-east German dialect) Greek: κεφτές (el) m (keftés) Ancient: ἰσίκιον n (isíkion) Hebrew: קציצה‎ (he) f Hungarian: húsgombóc (hu),fasírt (hu) Icelandic: kjötbolla f Indonesian: bakso (id), bola daging Irish: millín feola m Italian: polpetta (it) f Japanese: 肉団子 (にくだんご, nikudango), ミートボール (mītobōru) Kapampangan: bola-bola, almondigas Kazakh: тефтели (tefteli) Khmer: គ្រាប់បាល់សាច់ (krŏəpbalsac) Korean: 미트볼 (miteubol) Kumyk: кюпте (küpte) Kyrgyz: эт мяч (ky) (et myaç) Lao: ລູກຊີ້ນ (lūk sīn) Latvian: gaļas bumba Lithuanian: mėsos kamuolys Luxembourgish: Boulette f Macedonian: ќофте n (ḱofte) Malay: bebola daging Mongolian: бөөрөнхий мах (böörönxii max) Norwegian: Bokmål: kjøttbolle (no) m, kjøttkake m or f Nynorsk: kjøtbolle m, kjøttbolle m, kjøtkake f, kjøttkake f Persian: کله‌گنجشکی‎ Polish: klops (pl), klopsik m, pulpet (pl) m Portuguese: almôndega (pt) f Romanian: chiftea (ro) f, pârjoală (ro) f Russian: фрикаде́лька (ru) f (frikadɛ́lʹka) (boiled), тефте́лька (ru) f (teftélʹka) (roasted), бито́к (ru) m (bitók) (roasted) Sicilian: purpetta (scn) f Spanish: albóndiga (es) f Swedish: köttbulle (sv) c Tagalog: bolabola Thai: ลูกชิ้น (th) (lûuk-chín) Turkish: köfte (tr) Ukrainian: тюфтельки (tjuftelʹky) Uzbek: frikadelka (uz) Vietnamese: thịt viên Welsh: pelen gig f Westrobothnian: tjötmånk m

See also

• patty
• rissole

Further reading

• meatball on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Meatball (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Optical landing system on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• at 'em ball, metaball