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Glite Dictionary
bush leaguer

bush leaguer

9.7
A baseball player on a minor league team
  • noun
  • /bʊʃ ˈliːɡər/
  • US
translation icon : jugador de liga menor
  • The experienced players often help the bush leaguers improve their game during practice.

Examples

  • Backstabbing their manager has been a favorite pastime of Sox bush leaguers for decades.

    Blog text (9)

  • The team manager believes that many bush leaguers have the potential to play in the major leagues one day.

  • During the tryouts, several bush leaguers showcased their skills in front of the talent scouts.

Synonyms

minor leaguer
vsbush leaguer
  • US
5 4.8

A baseball player who plays for a professional team below the top level

is the same but used especially in the United States
busher
vsbush leaguer
  • Archaic
9.3

A person who plays in small or amateur leagues, especially baseball

emphasizes membership in an organized professional lower baseball level, not amateur play

How Professional

star player
13 2.0
bush leaguer
  • US
9.7
semipro
  • Informal
2 6.6
amateur
122 2.8

Surface Forms

bush leaguer singular
bush leaguers plural
bush-leaguers plural
bush-leaguer singular

Morphology

bush + leaguer

The literal meanings of 'bush' (shrub, rural area) plus 'leaguer' (member of a league) do not directly yield the specialized sense 'minor-league baseball player'; the phrase stems from the idiomatic U.S. baseball term 'bush league' meaning a lower-quality or minor-league level. This cultural and idiomatic shift is not predictable from the parts, so a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Bush leaguer may come from early baseball in small towns where teams played on rough fields near wild bushes. So a bush leaguer came to mean a player in the 'minor leagues' or, more loosely, someone who is 'less skilled'.