technical foul

noun

basketball

: a foul that is assessed to a player, coach, or team typically for unsportsmanlike conduct (such as arguing with an official or taunting an opponent) and does not usually involve physical contact with an opponent while the ball is in play

called also technical

compare personal foul

Examples of technical foul in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Lucky for him the officials didn’t see it, as Houston was out of timeouts and the Thunder would have had another chance to win it via a technical foul shot. —Joe Vardon, New York Times, 22 Oct. 2025

Green has finished inside the top 10 of technical foul leaders in each season, except one, since the 2014-15 campaign, leading the league three times. —Ryan Morik, FOXNews.com, 22 Oct. 2025

Rohan Nadkarni Kevin Durant tried to call a timeout the Rockets didn’t have — which should have resulted in a technical foul. —Andrew Greif, NBC news, 22 Oct. 2025

Forward | 25 | 6-8 | 215 Former coach Michael Malone joked last year that Tyson might break Rasheed Wallace's single-season record for technical fouls. —Bennett Durando, Denver Post, 21 Oct. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1896, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for technical foul

• afoul
• wildfowl
• foule
• fowl
• growl
• howl
• jowl
• owl
• prowl
• scowl
• waterfowl