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Definition of "quarterback" []

  • Football The backfield player whose position is behind the line of scrimmage and who usually calls the signals for the plays. (noun)
  • Football To direct the offense of. (verb-transitive)
  • Slang To lead or direct the operations of: "needed someone to quarterback the [brain trust] for the first U.S. ICBM program” ( Forbes). (verb-transitive)
  • Football To play quarterback. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "quarterback" in a sentence
  • "The shortest path to the quarterback is a straight line and they line up closer than anybody to the quarterback."
  • "Well, when doing a football movie, the quarterback is also one of the more important casts that a casting director must fill."
  • "The "target" statistic doesn't tell us if the quarterback is actually coming that close to the receiver."