英和和英

語源

1926: soft +‎ ball. Compare hardball.

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名詞

softball (countable and uncountable, plural softballs)

1. (sports) A game similar to baseball but played with a larger and softer ball which can be thrown overhand or underhand.
   • 1996, Andrew Heller, Come Heller High Water, →ISBN, page 55:

     This will give you someone with whom you can trade softball complaints, which any veteran game-goer will tell you is the key to a good time.

2. (sports) The ball used to play the sport.
3. (by analogy, also attibutive) A question designed to be easy to answer.

   a softball interview

   • 2004 October 9, James Bennett, “In a Disguised Gym, Softballs and Political Drama”, in The New York Times‎:

     Each man got his share of softballs on Friday night. But for 90 minutes in a dressed-up basketball arena at Washington University, the two candidates were also forced to address the kind of questions they get rarely if ever on the campaign trail: from voters who doubted them and maybe did not even like them very much.

   • 2025 December 20, Richard Fausset, Ken Bensinger, quoting Ben Shapiro, “Turning Point’s Annual Gathering Turns Into a Gripefest”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     He [Ben Shapiro] wielded a particularly pointed arrow at Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, for engaging in what he said was “an act of moral imbecility,” by recently airing a softball interview with Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

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