Definitions

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

  • transitive & intransitive verb To cause to bend or to bend into an inward curve.
  • noun An inward curve.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To make crooked; bend; curve; specifically, to cause to curve or bend inward: as, the incurved antennæ of an insect.
  • To curve or bend inward.
  • noun In base-ball, lawn-bowls, bowling, etc., a ball so pitched or rolled by a right-handed man as to curve to the right.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To bend; to curve; to make crooked.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb rare To cause something to curve inwards.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English incurven, to twist, distort, from Latin incurvāre, to curve in, be crooked : in-, in; see in– + curvus, curve; see curve.]

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Examples

  • A so-called incurve is nothing more than a ball thrown in a natural way with great force.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • According to The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the incurve was the “pitch now known as a screwball.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • A so-called incurve is nothing more than a ball thrown in a natural way with great force.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • According to The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the incurve was the “pitch now known as a screwball.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • A so-called incurve is nothing more than a ball thrown in a natural way with great force.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • According to The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the incurve was the “pitch now known as a screwball.”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • Or “incurve,” a term commonly used as the nineteenth century became the twentieth.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • In a 1908 instructional book called How to Pitch, Bill Dineen says of the incurve/inshoot he used the terms interchangeably, “Speed is necessary for an inshoot … Do not become discouraged if you fail to see the ball positively change its course as it does in an outcurve … Practice will succeed in giving a sharp break to the ball, which may not amount to more than an inch or two …”

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • One might assume that the incurve is simply the reverse of the outcurve, which would be the reverse of the curveball … which is to say, a screwball.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

  • The language of the game changes substantially in every generation; a rising fastball becomes a four-seam fastball which becomes a four-seamer, a forkball becomes a split-fingered fastball which becomes a splitter, a drop curve becomes an overhand curve which becomes a 12-to-6 curve, an incurve becomes a fadeaway, a fadeaway becomes a screwball, and now almost nobody throws a screwball but people throw a circle change-up that does the same thing, sort of.

    The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers Bill James Rob Neyer 2004

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