fielder
Pluralfielders
- 1A defensive player positioned in the field whose job is to catch or stop balls hit by the batter.
The fielder fired the ball to second base to complete the double play.
Quick fielders can turn a sure hit into an easy out.
Oppositebatter
Note
Baseball borrowed an old farm word: Middle English feldere was one who works in the field, a rustic, and Old English feldeware a field-dweller. The sports sense dates from 1832, long after the farmhand meaning was established. In baseball and softball it names the side without the bat: the batter hits; the fielder catches, stops or throws the ball.
- 2A player on the fielding side in cricket whose job is to gather the ball after the batter has hit it, catch the batter out, or stop them from scoring.
The fielder at slip dove low to take a brilliant one-handed catch.
Boundary fielders chased the ball to save two runs.
Similarfieldsman
Note
Cricket's fielder is usually identified by the spot they guard: a fielder at slip, at cover, at point, or out on the boundary. The bowler and wicketkeeper are on the fielding side too, but the word normally means the other players spread around the ground. A fielder who holds a catch can take a wicket, and fieldsman means exactly the same.
- 3Agent noun of field.
A skilled fielder of difficult questions, the spokesman never lost his composure.
She became the office's unofficial fielder of every odd request.
Note
Built fresh from the verb, this is anyone who handles whatever comes their way. It nearly always needs an of-phrase naming the thing handled: a fielder of questions, of complaints, of requests. Andrew Nugent's The Slow-release Miracle (2006) calls gurus and therapists "self-proffering fielders of the question." Without the of-phrase, readers will hear a ballplayer.
Less common meanings
- 4A laborer who works in the fields; a fieldworker.
Note
The oldest layer of the word, now obsolete. Middle English feldere meant both "one who works in the field" and "a rustic," and it goes back to Old English feldeware, "field-dweller." A modern reader would take fielder to mean a ballplayer, so for agricultural labor use fieldworker, farmhand or laborer instead.
- 5A dog trained in pursuit of game in the field.
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Origins
From Middle English feldere ("one who works in the field; rustic"), from Old English feldeware ("field-dweller"), equivalent to field plus -er. The baseball sense dates from 1832.
From the verb field combined with the suffix -er.