Football vs. Footfall

(general) A sport played on foot in which teams attempt to get a ball into a goal or zone defended by the other team.

Example: ‘Roman and medieval football matches were more violent than any modern type of football.’;

Association football: a game in which two teams each contend to get a round ball into the other team's goal primarily by kicking the ball. Known as soccer in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Example: ‘Each team scored three goals when they played football.’;

American football: a game played on a field of 100 yards long and 53 1/3 yards wide in which two teams of 11 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.

Example: ‘Each team scored two touchdowns when they played football.’;

Canadian football: a game played on a played on a field of 110 yards long and 65 yards wide in which two teams of 12 players attempt to get an ovoid ball to the end of each other's territory.

Example: ‘They played football in the snow.’;

Australian rules football.

Gaelic football: a field game played with similar rules to hurling, but using hands and feet rather than a stick, and a ball, similar to, yet smaller than a soccer ball.

rugby league.

rugby union.

(countable) The ball used in any game called "football".

Example: ‘The player kicked the football.’;

(uncountable) Practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them.

An item of discussion, particularly in a back-and-forth manner

Example: ‘That budget item became a political football.’;

The leather briefcase containing classified nuclear war plans, which is always near the US President.

An inflated ball to be kicked in sport, usually made in India rubber, or a bladder incased in Leather.

The game played with a football{1}, by two opposing teams of players moving the ball between goals at opposite ends of a rectangular playing field. Outside the United States football refers to soccer, and in England, also to rugby, but in the United States the shape of the ball and the rules of the game are different.

Soccer or rugby.

Something which is treated in a rough manner, usually as part of a dispute; as, a political football.

any of various games played with a ball (round or oval) in which two teams try to kick or carry or propel the ball into each other's goal

the inflated oblong ball used in playing American football

any of various forms of team game involving kicking (and in some cases also handling) a ball, in particular (in the UK) soccer or (in the US) American football

Example: ‘a football club’; ‘a football match’;

the playing of football, especially in a stylish and entertaining way

Example: ‘his team played some impressive football’;

a ball used in football, either round (as in soccer) or oval (as in rugby and American football) and typically made of leather or plastic and filled with compressed air.

a topical issue that is the subject of continued argument or controversy

Example: ‘the use of education as a political football’;

a briefcase containing authentication codes and other items that allow the US president to authorize a nuclear strike at any time

Example: ‘wherever the president travels, a military aide stays close with the football’; ‘whose fingers would we prefer to have on America's nuclear football?’;

Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used.

(countable) The sound made by a footstep.

Foot (pedestrian) traffic.

A setting down of the foot; a footstep; the sound of a footstep.

Example: ‘Seraphim, whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.’;

the sound of a step of someone walking;

Example: ‘he heard footsteps on the porch’;

Footfall is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The book depicts the arrival of members of an alien species called the Fithp that have traveled to the solar system from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft driven by a Bussard ramjet.