ball of yarn
3
1.0
- noun
:
madeja
- I've discovered that if I give Little Man a spare ball of yarn to play with, he is generally happy to let me crochet in peace for a while.
- play with a ball of yarn
- ball of yarn rolls
Or in this picture, these are spheres with little balls of yarn, little lines crossing on them.
- Or in this picture, these are spheres with little balls of yarn, little lines crossing on them.
- And you could be stopping at the world's largest ball of yarn, which incidentally, we didn't stop at.
- And I think you need somebody to help you untangle this ball of yarn.
- That is a fairly tangled ball of yarn to to try to, you know, make sense of.
- Just like just, but it was a big ball of yarn.
- I'm at this ball of yarn and I am in love, simply in love with this ball of yarn.
- And as you begin to interrogate it, the whole ball of yarn unravels and you realize how absurd it is to need to be respected.
Examples
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The cat loves to chase the ball of yarn that I bought last week.
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Did you lose your ball of yarn?
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But instead of speaking, she tossed a ball of yarn at me.
Fiction book (1998) -
The ball of yarn rolls out the door and Lucy chases after it.
Fiction book (2001) -
She's plotting something, waiting for me to turn my back as she makes off with yet another ball of yarn.
Blog text (15) -
Ms. Spencer said she lost several items, including a ball of yarn and her knitting needles.
Blog text (23) -
Lucy leaves the piano and toddles over to Annie's loom and plays with a ball of yarn.
Fiction book (2001) -
During the class, we used a ball of yarn to demonstrate how to knit.
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Lucy found a colorful ball of yarn in the craft box for her project.
Synonyms
42
1.8
A long thread of twisted fibers like wool used for knitting
1
4.4
A long coil of yarn wound loosely for knitting or crocheting
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a round mass of yarn' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'ball' (a spherical mass) with 'yarn' (fibers for knitting) using the standard English 'X of Y' noun pattern. This is a literal, compositional phrase found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand it.
Etymology
Ball of yarn comes from the simple picture of yarn wrapped into a tidy ball so it does not tangle while you knit. So it means 'a round mass of yarn used for knitting or crocheting'.