Football refers to 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. It commonly describes 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, 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, and 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, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to rugby union, the ball used in any game called "football", and practice of these particular games, or techniques used in them, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Football as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language.
