⚾ A warning pitch 💇 Hair brushed back ⚠️ A warning

brushback

1 8.6

A pitch in baseball thrown close to a batter to make them move away from the plate

noun
/ˈbrʌʃˌbæk/

Jargon

: lanzamiento cerca del bateador

In the first case, I would sling the brushback pitch that I had learned to keep at hand for such occasions, amply familiar from life in New York.
brushback pitch

Examples

The pitcher threw a brushback to push the batter away from the plate.
File that brushback pitch under "how to keep yourself from ending up under the blame bus in 25 words or less."

Blog text (33)
The purpose is a brushback pitch, hoping to intimidate the press into criticizing Obama and going easy on McCain.

Blog text (6)
During the game, the players had to dodge several brushback pitches that were thrown close to them.
After the brushback pitch, the batter took a step back to avoid getting hit.

Synonyms

brushback pitch

vsbrushback

Jargon

1 8.6

A ball thrown close to the batter to make them move away from home plate or feel scared

names the same action but without the extra noun form

duster

vsbrushback

Jargon

8.6

A baseball pitch thrown near the batter to intimidate them

can be the same action but not always framed as intentional intimidation

Compounds

brushback pitch

Jargon

1 8.6

A ball thrown close to the batter to make them move away from home plate or feel scared

How Close

beanball

Jargon

1 9.3

brushback

Jargon

1 8.6

pitch-out

Jargon

7.3

Surface Forms

brushback singular

brushbacks plural

Morphology

brushback = brush (semi-transparent) = back + brush

The components signal an action that forces someone back, but the specialized baseball sense (a pitch thrown close to intimidate) is jargon and may not be obvious to non-sports learners. [Postprocessing: moved 'back' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

In baseball, brushback comes from the same idea — brush + back — meaning to 'brush' a batter 'back' with a pitch that comes close and makes them step away from the plate.