inning
noun/ˈɪnɪŋ/
Etymology Back-formation from innings, mistaken to be plural of the time period, not the entries of the batters/batsmen.
Ball games, Baseball, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports A period of play in which members of a visiting baseball team attempt to hit a baseball pitched by the opposing home team until three players are called out, followed by a similar attempt by members of the home baseball team against the visiting team's pitching. There are nine or more innings in a regulation baseball game.
- It is a baseball tradition to sing "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch.
Ball games, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Softball, Sports A similar period of play.
- We batted around in our half of the inning.
Ball games, Billiards, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports A player (or team)'s turn at the table to make shots until ended by a miss or a foul.
A chance or opportunity to perform some deed or act.
- We are in just the second inning of our quest to enter this new market.
Obsolete The gathering of a crop; harvesting.
- […] for the mowing, reaping, shering, getting or inning of corne, […]1563, Richarde Jugge, Anno Quinto Reginae Elizabethe:
Obsolete Lands recovered from the sea.
- One of the earliest ‘innings’ of Walland Marsh, after the Norman Conquest,‥has been ever since called Becket's Innings, as this Archbishop has the credit of promoting it.1880, Archaeologia Cantiana:
- Derived terms
- extra inning, ninth-inning, seventh inning stretch
- Related terms
- first half of an inning, second half of an inning