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baseball player

baseball player

72 1.4
A person who plays baseball for a team or as a job
  • noun
  • /ˈbeɪsˌbɔl ˈpleɪər/
translation icon : jugador de béisbol
  • The baseball player hit a home run to win the game for his team.
  • major league baseball player
  • professional baseball player
  • American baseball player

You know who's your all time favorite baseball player?

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Examples

  • Jake is a professional baseball player.

  • Well, Tony Gwynn is a Hall of Fame baseball player who during his years was probably the best hitter in baseball.

  • - Did you want to be a baseball player?

  • Are you a baseball player?

  • And a professional baseball player.

  • I was a baseball player.

  • Who was the first Native American baseball player in the major leagues?

    Academic text (2000)
  • So Jackie Robinson, you know, was the first black baseball player in baseball.

  • Historian 1: Joe DiMaggio was the most famous baseball player in America.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • Willie Mays, maybe the greatest baseball player ever, had a lot of trouble staying in his home in San Francisco.

Synonyms

ballplayer
vsbaseball player
  • US
54 3.0

A person who plays baseball, often as a professional

applies specifically to a bat and ball team sport rather than ball sports generally

How Skilled

star player
13 2.0
professional
16 3.5
baseball player
72 1.4
novice
46 3.4

Surface Forms

Morphology

baseball + player

The meaning 'a person who plays the sport of baseball' is directly and compositionally derived from the constituents 'baseball' (the sport) and 'player' (a person who plays). This noun-noun compound follows a common and cross-linguistically transparent pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words will reliably understand the MWE.

Etymology

Baseball player comes from the simple picture of a person who plays the game of baseball. In that game people run between the 'bases' and hit the ball, so a baseball player is just someone who 'plays' that game, often for a team or as a job.