brushback

noun

brush·​back ˈbrəsh-ˌbak How to pronounce brushback (audio)
: a pitch intentionally thrown near the batter's head or body in baseball
brush back transitive verb

Examples of brushback in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web And in Major League Baseball, brushback pitches, beanballs and brawls are part of the sport’s lore, and are excused as apt punishment for breaking the game’s unwritten rules. Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2023 Conway offered a brushback pitch when asked to handicap the Florida governors’ chances against Trump. Dallas News, 4 Nov. 2022 Marichal and Koufax had exchanged brushback pitches to Maury Wills and Willie Mays, respectively. Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug. 2022 Shortly after the attack, the longtime anchor Shepard Smith, a beloved figure in the Fox newsroom, threw a brushback pitch at his own network. New York Times, 30 Apr. 2022 For a while, in the fall, the city was a delight, with some improvisational recapturing of the streets, a more alive streetscape, a reimagining of sidewalks, and a brushback of the automobile. Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 22 Feb. 2021 McMaster holds up this decision as a virtue, prefacing his book with a brushback statement that amounts to a pox on both houses. Washington Post, 25 Sep. 2020 Tlaib has already felt the brushback from a few of her future colleagues. Eslah Attar, Glamour, 13 Dec. 2018 The latest head-swerving shift in Trump’s approach to North Korea’s nuclear threat appeared a direct brushback to Trump’s own national security advisor, John Bolton, a hard-line hawk who had pushed the upfront and all-at-once disarmament scenario. Tracy Wilkinson, latimes.com, 6 June 2018

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'brushback.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of brushback was in 1954

Dictionary Entries Near brushback

Cite this Entry

“Brushback.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brushback. Accessed 11 Oct. 2024.

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