force play

1. 1.

   a putout of a base runner who is required to run; the putout is accomplished by holding the ball while touching the base to which the runner must advance before the runner reaches that base

   “the shortstop got the runner at second on a force”

   Synonymsforce outforce-outforce

   Broaderputout

   baseball

Questions about force play

What does force play mean?

force play means "a putout of a base runner who is required to run; the putout is accomplished by holding the ball while touching the base to which the runner must advance before the runner reaches that base".

What is another word for force play?

Close synonyms include force out, force-out, force. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is force play a common word?

force play is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.