have a ball
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to enjoy oneself very much
Literally: hold a ball
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The ex - England prop will play Lord Chancellor at Bath's Theatre Royal, where he's sure to have a ball!
Pipe smokers and whisky drinkers have done much better, with a fall in duties of around 20%, while wine drinkers have had a ball, with a 30% fall in tax.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “have a ball” mean?
to enjoy oneself very much Literally: hold a ball
Is “have a ball” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.