softball
noun
softball is spelled S-O-F-T-B-A-L-L: 8 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 4.6 times per million words in written English, the 11,870th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, softball means “A game similar to baseball but played with a larger and softer ball which can be thrown overhand or underhand” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of softball is softballs.
How many letters and syllables are in softball?
| Letters | 8: S-O-F-T-B-A-L-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.6 times per million words; the 11,870th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is softball?
Softball appears 4.6 times per million words in written English, the 11,870th 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).
How do you pronounce softball?
- US
Softball has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-softball.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of softball
- softballs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does softball mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A game similar to baseball but played with a larger and softer ball which can be thrown overhand or underhand.
- 2
The ball used to play the sport.
- 3
A question designed to be easy to answer.
a softball interview
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Softball in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense game:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | softball, balle-molle |
| German | Softball |
| Portuguese | softball, softbol |
| Spanish | sófbol |
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 softball come from?
1926: soft + ball. Compare hardball.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).