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PlainSpell

footballer

UK /ˈfʊtbɔːlə/noun

footballer is a noun meaning “One who plays association football” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L-E-R, and it appears 4.9 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of footballer is footballers.

What does footballer mean?

noun

  1. 1

    UKOne who plays association football.

  2. 2

    AustraliaOne who plays Australian rules football.

  3. 3

    IrelandOne who plays Gaelic football.

  4. 4

    proscribedrareOne who plays American football.

  5. 5

    Any fish in the kyphosid subfamily Microcanthinae.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce footballer?

  • UK /ˈfʊtbɔːlə/
  • British /ˈfɵtboːlə/
  • /ˈfʊtbɔlɚ/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-footballer.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of footballer

  • footballers plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is footballer?

Footballer appears 4.9 times per million words in written English, the 11,373rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Footballer in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense one who plays football:

LanguageWords
Frenchfootballeur, footballeuse
GermanFußballer, Fussballer, Fußballerin, Fussballerin, Fußballspieler, Fussballspieler
Portuguesefutebolista, jogador de futebol, jogadora de futebol
Spanishfutbolista, balompedista

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does footballer come from?

From football + -er. For the kyphosid sense, named for the resemblance of their stripes to football uniforms.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).