Outswinger

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of delivery in cricket where the ball is bowled with a spin or seam causing it to curve away from a right-handed batsman; a bowling technique designed to deceive the batsman by moving the ball laterally outward
2. A cricket bowling style characterized by the ball moving away from the batsman’s body after release; a strategic delivery that swings outward in the air to challenge the batter’s timing and technique
3. A cricket ball delivery that swings away from a batsman’s stance, typically for right-handers; a method to generate lateral movement and confuse opponents by curving the ball outward during its trajectory

Etymology: An outswinger is a cricket delivery in which the bowler's arm action makes the ball curve away from the batter, towards the off side. The word is a plain compound: "out" and "swing", with the agent suffix "-er" added. The first element goes back to a root shared across Germanic languages, meaning "outward" or "away", and in English it has long been a word for moving away from a centre point. "Swing" is the verb for the sideways curve of a moving object, so the whole word describes a ball that swings out, away from the batter. The second element, "-er", is one of the most productive suffixes in English. It descends from Old English "-ere", which was used to form nouns for people or things that perform an action, such as "baker" or "hunter". By attaching it to a phrasal verb-like pairing, cricket writers created a compact name for a specific bowling technique, and the term is now used throughout cricket commentary.

Synonyms: curveball, swinger, spin bowled ball

Antonyms: inswinger, straight ball