| 释义 |
ˈballpark orig. and chiefly U.S.
Also ball park, ball-park.
[f. ball n.1 + park n.]
1. A baseball stadium.
1899Chicago Daily News 4 Aug. 6/1 Billy Phyle..went out to the ball park. 1957Economist 23 Nov. 687/1 Shortly after the war..attendance at the ball parks began to slump as a result of television.
2. transf. and fig.
a. A broad area of approximation, similarity, etc.; a range within which comparison is possible. spec. in Astronautics, the area within which a spacecraft is expected to return to earth. Also attrib.
1960San Francisco Examiner 21 Aug. i. 10/3 The Discoverer XIV capsule..came down 200 miles from the center of its predicted impact area, but still within the designated ‘ballpark’ area. 1961Times (Seattle, Washington) 15 Oct. 1 The aerial recovery in an area called the ‘ballpark’ was the sixth in the Discoverer series. 1962Wall St. Jrnl. 19 June 8/6 (Advt.), Its speed, range, and over-the-weather altitude put it in the same ballpark with the big airline jets. 1970Observer 24 May 40/6 You guys all belong in the same ballpark. 1978New Scientist 4 May 277/2 The volume of carbon dioxide required to produce surface carbon..would have created an atmosphere ‘in the ballpark of Venus’. 1985Dirt Bike Mar. 29/2 You really can't buy a better out-of-the-box suspension than this, and on that basis, the KTM is hardly out of the ballpark.
b. A sphere of activity, influence, etc.
1963San Francisco News Call-Bull. 6 Nov. 51/1 They might find ‘pockets of overbuilding in their own ball park’. 1968Globe & Mail (Toronto) 3 Feb. b2/7 Exemption from any marketing plans..‘pretty well would have given them the ball park to themselves’. 1971San Francisco Examiner 10 Aug. 18/2 Perhaps your mother-in-law ‘took over’ because she is an R.N. and the hospital is her ballpark. 1982Daily Tel. 2 Aug. 20/7 They were re-stating the management's objectives or ‘redefining the ball-park’, according to Mr Merryweather. 1986Marketing 11 Sept. 26/1 It is difficult to know how the new Chinese masters will regard the activities of the colony{ddd}So the ball park still isn't clearly defined.
c. In colloq. phr. in the (right) ballpark, plausibly accurate, within reasonable bounds.
1968San Francisco Examiner 8 Oct. 58/7 The figures I have indicate this pay-out is ‘in the ball park’. 1972Sat. Rev. Sci. (U.S.) 13 May 59/2 We can save lives with adequately equipped ambulances and properly trained personnel. It may be 50,000 or 75,000, but a figure of 60,000 is in the right ball park. 1977R. E. Megill Introd. Risk Analysis xiv. 154 The Delphi technique of brainstorming can often produce answers surprisingly close to reality, but it may also produce one not even in the ‘ball park’. 1978SLR Camera Dec. 61/3 This basic filtration, though, has very often saved me a test strip because it's got me into the right ball park filter-wise. 1985Aviation Week & Space Technol. 23 Sept. 14/2 A previously established gross takeoff weight target of 50,000 lb. remains in effect... ‘We're confident we're in the right ballpark now,’ Russ said.
3. attrib., approximate, within a reasonable range of accuracy, as ballpark estimate, ballpark figure, etc.
1967Wall St. Jrnl. 7 June 4, I gave them a guess of somewhere around {pstlg}1.5 billion... I thought it was a ball-park figure. 1969San Francisco Examiner 23 June 2/6 A ‘ballpark estimate’ put the cost of such a plan at possibly {pstlg}20 billion the first year. 1976Offshore Platforms & Pipelining 72/2 This technique..gives only ‘ball park’ types of answers. 1984New Yorker 14 May 42/2 How many times per week do you have sexual relations? On the average—just a ballpark figure. |