out of play

1. 1.

   (of a ball) not available to be played during a game

   “a ball that is out of play is dead”

   Similardead

   sport

Questions about out of play

What does out of play mean?

out of play means "(of a ball) not available to be played during a game".

Is out of play a common word?

out of 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.