Meaning of ball alley | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A place for playing handball, ranging in structure from a patch of hard flat ground beside a gable to an indoor four-walled court similar to a squash court.
   Ireland
2. A bowling alley.
   US, obsolete

Examples

“A portion of it was still further desecrated ; up to a very recent period being used as a racket-court, or ball-alley”

“Perhaps the single most poignant image in the book is of the handball champion Mickey Walsh, described by Healy as 'our last hero' tossing a ball to himself in the dilapidated ball alley.”

“The school was partly in front of them and on fine evenings, the gable end was used as a ball alley and it was quite a gathering place for young people.”

“In Kilkenny City, there was also a tennis court in existence by 1798. This court later became known as a racket court and then a ball alley.”

“It shall not be lawful for any person or persons to keep or maintain in the said village, any ball-alley, or apparatus, alley, machine, building or enclosure, constructed or used for the purpose of playing thereon or therewith at the game called or known by the name of nine-pins or ten-pins, for gain, hire, reward or emolument of any kind or in any manner whatsoever;”

“[I] knew [Herman Melville] when he was setting up pins in a ball alley.”

CEFR level