water polo
12
2.1
- noun
- /ˈwɔːtər ˈpoʊloʊ/
- Head coach Luis Nicolao is in his 15th season in charge of the men's water polo team.
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Watch on YouTubeSo for the Valley, the water polo team and the women's swim team.
- So for the Valley, the water polo team and the women's swim team.
- She's trying out for the national team in water polo.
- Now, I was tempted to do water polo, but I think that wouldn't work out too well, right?
- So I come from a line of athletes and my great grandpa was an Olympian water polo player.
Examples
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At Skyline High School in Salt Lake City, John swam, played water polo, and was a student body officer.
Blog text (31) -
In the 1956 Olympic Games, the Hungarian water polo team defeated the Russian team.
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- Where is your water polo team?
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I would love to play water polo.
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Paul, how much would you pay to play a real game of water polo?
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For Seniors, we have water polo in the middle pool.
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There's an international water polo match on TV.
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Don't you have water polo practice right now?
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Ron echoed a common sentiment when he said: "From the very first practice, I fell in love with water polo."
Academic text (1990) -
The water polo match between the two teams was thrilling to watch.
Surface Forms
Morphology
water + polo
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'water' (the environment) with 'polo' (the sport): a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it is the form of polo played in water. This modifier+sport composition is common cross-linguistically and follows regular English compounding patterns, so the sense is predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Water polo comes from the land sport polo, where players on horses hit a ball, so when people began playing a similar ball game in water, they called it water polo. That's why water polo now means 'a team sport played in a swimming pool'.