⚾ A dropping pitch 🎣 A fishing weight 🍩 A fried cake

sinker

3 7.5

A baseball pitch that moves downward sharply as it reaches the batter

noun
/ˈsɪŋkər/

Jargon

: sinker

Henderson Alvarez is young, with a power sinker that sits comfortably in the mid-90s.

Examples

Either way, I thought he had a good sinker and was a very good option out of the pen.

Blog text (27)
The heavy sinker the Phillies saw in spring training prior to the 2010 season never fully materialized.

Blog text (27)
Here comes the pitch: sinker away, and Cobb unleashes a swing that is at once quick and powerful.

Fiction book (1994)
He used his off-speed stuff more often, with the noticeable changes being his sinker and curveball.

Blog text (22)
The right-hander made the initial jump to Altoona last year and had impressive results after relying more on his sinker to get ahead against the upper-level hitters.

Blog text (33)
The pitcher threw a sinker that dipped just before reaching the batter.
He relies on his sinker to get ground balls when the game is on the line.
During the game, the catcher signaled for a sinker to confuse the hitter.

Idioms

hook, line, and sinker

Informal

8 7.6

In a way that shows you believe something completely

Compounds

die-sinker

Specialized

9.9

A person who cuts designs in metal to make stamps for coins or medals

How Curved

bender

Slang

4 9.1

sinker

Jargon

3 7.5

slider

Jargon

11 6.6

fastball

55 3.2

Surface Forms

sinker singular

sinkers plural

Morphology

sinker = sink (semi-transparent) = sink + er

Formed from 'sink' + '-er' meaning 'one that sinks', but the baseball sense is a specialized technical usage and may not be immediately inferable to all learners.

Etymology

The baseball sinker is named after the verb sink meaning 'drop down' because the pitch suddenly 'sinks' as it reaches the plate, which is why it makes batters miss or hit the ground.