spitball
verbEtymology From spit + ball.
1
Ball games, Baseball, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports To moisten the ball with saliva before pitching it.
2
Figuratively To brainstorm ideas.
- Maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, maybe, we have a responsibility as officers to train Santiago.1992, Aaron Sorkin, A Few Good Men:
- —Yes, Wheeler? —Question. Maybe a stupid one, but I'm just spitballing here.2008, David Wain, Paul Rudd, Ken Marino, Timothy Dowling, 01:09:07 from the start, in Role Models:
1 more example
- What happens, though, if you, the filmmaker, can't get the malevolence to work? That's where Jaws had its happy misfortune, its felix culpa. When the mechanical sharks failed to work[…][Steven] Spielberg and his cast had nothing to do but hole up evening after evening in a Martha's Vineyard house and spitball about the script, story and characters.2025 June 14, Nigel Andrews, “They don’t come any bigger”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 13:
- Derived terms
- spitballer