top of the inning
1
5.1
- noun
- Jargon
:
parte alta de la entrada
- Bruntlett, who had entered in the top of the inning to play left, drew a walk.
Examples
-
The North Vietnamese Giants, as the home team, took the field in the top of the inning.
Fiction book (2000) -
Hamilton scored, and the Javelinas got two runs total on Perry in the top of the inning.
Blog text (12) -
The players took their positions on the field as the game commenced in the top of the inning.
-
During the top of the inning, the visiting team scored three runs, putting pressure on the home team.
-
The crowd cheered loudly as the batter stepped up to hit during the top of the inning.
Synonyms
13
7.4
The first half of an inning when the visiting team bats
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'top' = the upper/first part and 'inning' = the playing period, so a learner who knows both words can infer it refers to the first half of an inning when the visiting team bats. Although sports-specific, the noun-of-noun structure is regular English and the sense is predictable from the constituents, making it transparent.
Etymology
Top of the inning comes from baseball and softball, where each inning has two halves and the first half is called the top. That's when the 'visiting team' is 'at bat', so top of the inning means the first half of an inning when the visiting team bats.