take one's eye off the ball
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To lose focus or concentration on something important
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
mất tập trung hoặc chú ý vào điều gì đó quan trọng
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: to remove one's gaze from a ball
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The team took their eye off the ball and lost the game
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
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 “take one's eye off the ball” mean?
To lose focus or concentration on something important Literally: to remove one's gaze from a ball
Is “take one's eye off the ball” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.