ball

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A spherical object or entity.
• noun A spherical or almost spherical body.
• noun Any of various movable and round or oblong objects used in various athletic activities and games.
• noun Such an object moving, thrown, hit, or kicked in a particular manner.
• noun A game, especially baseball or basketball, played with such an object.
• noun A pitched baseball that does not pass through the strike zone and is not swung at by the batter.
• noun A solid spherical or pointed projectile, such as one shot from a cannon.
• noun Projectiles of this kind considered as a group.
• noun A rounded part or protuberance, especially of the body.
• noun A testicle.
• noun Courage, especially when reckless.
• noun Great presumptuousness.
• intransitive verb To form into a ball.
• intransitive verb Vulgar Slang To have sexual intercourse with.
• intransitive verb To become formed into a ball.
• intransitive verb Vulgar Slang To have sexual intercourse.
• idiom (have) To have control over someone; have someone at one's mercy.
• idiom (on the ball) Alert, competent, or efficient.
• idiom (on the ball) Relating to qualities, such as competence, skill, or knowledge, that are necessary for success.
• noun A formal gathering for social dancing.
• noun Informal An extremely enjoyable time or experience.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To take part in a ball; dance.
• An obsolete form of bawl.
• noun In the manufacture of soda by the Leblanc process, the batch of pasty material produced by heating together sodium sulphate or salt-cake, calcium carbonate (limestone or chalk), and coal as discharged from the furnace.
• noun In architecture, a spherical ornament.
• noun plural Iron ore occurring in balls or nodules. Also ball-ironstone.
• noun A dance; dancing.
• noun A social assembly of persons of both sexes for the purpose of dancing.
• noun A white streak or spot.
• noun A horse or nag (originally, white-faced): used appellatively, like dun, bayard.
• To make into a ball. Specifically—
• To surround in a compact cluster, as bees when they surround the queen bee.
• To form or gather into a ball, as snow on horses' hoofs, or mud on the feet.
• To remain in a solid mass instead of scattering: said of shot discharged from a gun.
• To fail; miscarry.
• noun An obsolete form of bal.
• noun A belt of sand a short distance offshore on which waves break in rough weather.
• noun A spherical or approximately spherical body; a sphere; a globe: as, a ball of snow, of thread, of twine, etc. Specifically
• noun A round or nearly round body, of different materials and sizes, for use in various games, as base-ball, foot-ball, cricket, tennis, billiards, etc.
• noun A game played with a ball, especially base-ball or any modification of it.
• noun A toss or throw of a ball in a game: as, a swift ball; a high or low ball.
• noun In base-ball, a pitch such that the ball fails to pass over the home-plate not higher than the shoulder nor lower than the knees of the striker: as, the pitcher is allowed five balls by the rules of the game.
• noun A small spherical body of wood or ivory used in voting by ballot. See ballot and blackball.
• noun The missile or projectile thrown from a firearm or other engine of war; a bullet or cannon-ball, whether spherical (as originally) or conical or cylindrical (as now commonly); in artillery, a solid projectile, as distinguished from a hollow one called a shell (which see).
• noun Projectiles, and more particularly bullets, collectively: as, to supply a regiment with powder and ball; the troops were ordered to load with ball.