gridiron
noun
Did you know?
Are you ready for some football... lingo? Excellent, and if your big game preparations involve firing up a griddle at a tailgate party, even better—American football shares linguistic ties with that form of cookery. One of the oldest senses of gridiron referred not to a football field but to a metal grate used for broiling food over an open fire. In Middle English, such a grating was called a gredil, a root that gave modern English both gridiron and griddle. How did gridiron become associated with football? That happened in the late 1800s, when early football fields were marked in a grid, not by the familiar parallel yard lines we know today. From high up in the stands, the lines made the playing fields look like cooking gridirons. You might remember this the next time your favorite player is hotdogging in the end zone.
Examples of gridiron in a Sentence
Nasha Smith, PEOPLE, 30 Nov. 2025
The unstoppable Limon gridiron machine rolls on this Saturday, when the Badgers take on Buena Vista at the ThunderBowl in Pueblo.
—Kyle Newman, Denver Post, 28 Nov. 2025
After being off the gridiron for nearly two decades following his Hall of Fame career, Faulk joined Deion Sanders’ staff at Colorado as the team’s running backs coach.
—Ryan Morik, FOXNews.com, 27 Nov. 2025
Borjon outgrew the game of baseball and returned to the gridiron as a junior in high school after giving up football in middle school.
—Eddie Brown, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for gridiron
Cite this Entry
“Gridiron.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gridiron. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
gridiron
noun
Share