# Does the term 'strike zone' predate baseball? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 1, 2014, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043 "2014-10-01T01:26:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/1 "2014-10-01T01:26:05Z")
Seems more GQ than Game Room. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/2 "2014-10-01T01:52:49Z")
Where else would it come from? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/3 "2014-10-01T01:59:24Z")
More interesting question: Why is it called a “strike” when the hitter has actually _failed_ to strike the ball? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/4 "2014-10-01T02:18:36Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > More interesting question: Why is it called a “strike” when the hitter has actually _failed_ to strike the ball? Interesting question. Somehow, it’s never occured to me to wonder, but according to [etymonline:](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=strike&searchmode=none) > [@](#): > > strike (n.) Look up strike at [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) > 1580s, “act of striking,” from strike (v.). Meaning “concentrated cessation of work by a body of employees” is from 1810. Baseball sense is first recorded 1841, originally meaning any contact with the ball; modern sense developed by 1890s, apparently from foul strike, which counted against the batter, and as hit came to be used for “contact with the ball” this word was left for “a swing and a miss” that counts against the batter; figurative sense of have two strikes against (of a possible three) is from 1938. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/5 "2014-10-01T02:29:48Z")
That etymology is written in too abbreviated a style for me to fully understand it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/6 "2014-10-01T02:34:59Z")
There is a longer answer [here](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/43839/how-did-strike-get-its-baseball-meaning). It seems the term first came to use as “fair strikes” vs “foul strikes,” and somehow, the “foul strike” (miss) dropped the “foul” part and only “strike” was left. The etymonline source intimates that since the word “hit” was used for a “fair strike,” the abbreviated form “strike” was left for “foul strike.” I know it’s not the most thorough explanation, but that’s all I could find at the moment. ETA: [Here’s a definition](http://books.google.com/books?id=_IEXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA580-IA7&lpg=PA580-IA7&dq=%22fair+strike%22+%22foul+strike%22&source=bl&ots=3Fv4uV4XV2&sig=XXnSavKvmGsEvoN8FttouK8EoG4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cGgrVI3POY-ayAS924GIDg&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22fair%20strike%22%20%22foul%20strike%22&f=false) of “fair strike” and “foul strike.” So my explanation above isn’t quite correct. But a three “foul strikes” (swinging at the ball “outside the lines of his position”) constituted an out. So it looks like “fair strike” vs “foul strike” were a matter not of hits and misses, but whether you were swinging at the ball in accordance with the rules. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/7 "2014-10-01T02:47:19Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > More interesting question: Why is it called a “strike” when the hitter has actually _failed_ to strike the ball? I would have thought it was because the pitcher hit the strike zone. After all, in bowling, a strike is what happens when the person throwing the ball gets it to go exactly where he wants it; why not in baseball too? But from the etymologies that others have provided, I guess that’s not the case. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/8 "2014-10-01T04:41:12Z")
And in cricket, the ancestor (or at least uncle) of baseball, the pitcher is trying to actually hit a physical object with the ball. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/9 "2014-10-01T05:26:34Z")
I have never heard the term “strike zone” and have no idea what it means. If it’s an exclusively AmE term, that tends to support the hypothesis that it comes from baseball jargon. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/10 "2014-10-01T05:49:47Z")
Some years ago I saw a stand-up comic on some variety TV show do a routine based on this. He portrayed himself as trying to explain American baseball to a visiting Brit: Things along the lines of: The pitcher throws the ball, but he mustn’t throw a ball. Then the batter must strike the ball but he mustn’t get a strike. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/11 "2014-10-01T11:58:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And in cricket, the ancestor (or at least uncle) of baseball, the pitcher is trying to actually hit a physical object with the ball. While this is a fact, I doubt it has any bearing on the terminology. Rounders and baseball never had a wicket and bails for the pitcher to strike. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I would have thought it was because the pitcher hit the strike zone. After all, in bowling, a strike is what happens when the person throwing the ball gets it to go exactly where he wants it; why not in baseball too? But from the etymologies that others have provided, I guess that’s not the case. This doesn’t make sense to me—there can’t be a “strike zone” to hit unless the concept of the “strike” is already well established. Indeed, I believe that the idea of the strike zone developed over time, and was not a concept ab initio. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2014, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-term-strike-zone-predate-baseball/700043/12 "2014-10-01T13:23:29Z")
According to the N-gram viewer, “strike zone” first appeared in American English in 1908, with negligible occurrence before that date., According to the rules of baseball: A STRIKE is a legal pitch when so called by the umpire, which\_ (a) Is struck at by the batter and is missed; (b) Is not struck at, if any part of the ball passes through any part of the strike zone; . . . Which is then defined, and has been redefined several times. So, essentially, the original idea was that the act of trying to hit a ball is “to strike” at it, and a batter has three opportunities to strike at the ball, and is then out if he fails to bat the ball into play in those three opportunities, called “strikes”.