I heard the phrase “full-court press” on the national news yesterday, used in the general sense to mean applying a lot of pressure (in this case, psychological pressure). It’s a common enough phrase that people know what it means even if they haven’t watched enough basketball to know when the strategy is being used. So, what are some other phrases or terms borrowed from sports that are so commonly used (e.g., in English) that they are de-linked from their sports meanings, i.e., an English speaker would know the meaning of the phrase/term as an idiom even if he/she doesn’t know anything about the sport.
Other examples
home run
quarterback (verb)
trifecta
Thanks for the link - most of those are good, but I guess I’m most interested in finding ones where the idiomatic meaning is so common that you don’t have to know anything about the sport. I’m not sure “hat trick” counts because I don’t think Americans who aren’t hockey fans (or cricket fans, apparently) know that phrase refers to a unit of three. Also not sure about “drop the gloves” for the same reason.
The list of idioms from baseball is interesting. There are a lot of good examples of phrases analogous to “full-court press,” but IMO the best examples are
batting a thousand
cleanup hitter
curveball
A few aren’t so well known to the non-fan (I’ve heard other people have to explain these ones)
ducks on a pond
Mendoza line
on deck
wheelhouse
Not what I was looking for, but interesting - novel meaning that isn’t a simple metaphor derived from the baseball meaning
ballpark (approximation)
play hardball
out of left field
There’s a ton of common idioms in American English that originate from baseball.
out of left field
off base
touching all the bases
on the ball/ dropped the ball
right off the bat
ballpark figure
two strikes against you/ that’s your second strike
playing hardball
playing the field
out of your league
step up to the plate
___ is a hit
thrown for a curve
going to bat for someone
close call
make a pitch
touch base
knocking one out of the park
