passed ball: Meaning and Definition of

passed' ball"

Pronunciation: [key]
— Baseball. Baseball.
  1. a pitched ball that the catcher can reasonably be expected to catch but misses, resulting in a base runner's or runners' advancing one or more bases or in the batter's reaching first base safely. Cf.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.