Play-by-play

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A detailed description or analysis of sporting events as they occur in succession, one play at a time. US

    "So I collected a cross section of play-by-plays, definitely not as many as I'd like to collect but enough to feel pretty comfortable with what I was seeing."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Describing a sports commentary in which a commentator describes every action in some detail as it occurs, often assisted by a second commentator who provides background information and other comments. US, not-comparable

Synonyms

All synonyms
ball-by-ball

Example

More examples

"So I collected a cross section of play-by-plays, definitely not as many as I'd like to collect but enough to feel pretty comfortable with what I was seeing."

Etymology

From play + by + play.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.