Doubleheaders

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A set of two scheduled sports games played between the same teams on the same day
2. a pair of events or performances taking place consecutively, often in the same venue
3. or a situation where two similar tasks or activities are completed in one go to maximize efficiency

Etymology: "Doubleheaders" is the plural of "doubleheader," a compound built from "double" and "header." The first part is simple enough, meaning two of something, but the second has a more interesting history. In American baseball slang, a "header" was a pitch or play thrown or made head-first, and the word was used loosely for a headlong fall or dive, which gave the sport a vocabulary of plunging, diving action. Combining the two produced a term for a pair of games played back to back by the same teams on one day, with a single admission price. The plural simply counts several such days, or several such pairs, on a schedule. Because the term grew out of the baseball calendar, it stayed closely tied to that sport and to its habit of squeezing two contests into one afternoon.

Synonyms: back-to-backs, double features, twice events