Volleyball Jargon - Slang Terms

Slang Terms

• Bang / Bounce / Thump: A ball spiked very hard with a steep downward angle.
• Beer: When an attacked ball goes through a defenders legs. After being "Beered" the defender then owes the attacker a beer.
• Blash: When a ball is blocked and the ball travels faster from the blocker to the floor than the attacker to the block. Made famous by Cameron Billingham, the term comes from a combination of the words 'Block' and 'Smash'.
• Block City: A fictional place that players claim to go when they are blocking very well. Also known as Turkey Town. (See "Stuff Turkey").
• Butter / Nectar / Sauce / Cheddar Biscuits : A perfect set.
• Chowder/Chum : A badly mangled set.
• Crab Defense: When a player is serving, the opposing three passers shuffle side to side and pinch their hands like crabs to distract the server.
• Deep Dish/Chicago style pizza/Evan set : An illegal set that is held excessively long, typically set from below the shoulders and seen in beach volleyball.
• Dime : A perfect pass.
• Dirt Dessert: When a player gets a kill so sweet, it's almost comparable to the utter sweetness of a classic Dirt Dessert.
• Double-double : When a player accumulates double-digit amounts in two of five statistical categories—aces, kills, blocks, digs, and assists—during one match.
• Facial / Six-Pack / Tattoo/ Dome : When a defending player gets hit in the face with the ball either from an attack by the opposing team or by a deflection off the block. The term "six-pack" refers to the dizzying sensation of being hit directly in the head or face by a volleyball as being analogous to the dizzying sensation of having drunk a six pack of beer. The abdominal muscles are sometimes referred to as a "six-pack," so getting hit in the stomach by the ball is getting 'six-packed.' The term "tattoo" refers to marks left on the skin of the hit player by the seams/lettering on the ball.
• Fishing: Making illegal contact with the net.
• Hands : Hand setting. Someone with "nice hands" sets well.
• Heat : Speed. Used to describe a hard-hit ball.
• House / Stuff / Roof : When the defensive player blocks a ball so hard that it is immediately returned to the hitter and goes straight to the floor.
• Hubby-wife / Campfire : In beach volleyball, when a serve drops between two players because the players don't decide in time who will pass it.
• Jungleball / Barbecue ball / Picnic ball : A volleyball game played by inexperienced players with little ball control.
• Nail : A perfect pass.
• O.T. : When an attacker hits the ball over top of the blocker and it lands in front of the defense.
• Overkill : When an overpass (or a free ball) occurs and the opposing team attacks the ball for a kill.
• Paintbrush / Whiff / Spatch : A mishit — when a player attempts to hit (or spike) the ball with the open hand and nearly misses the ball, only contacting the ball with his/her fingers resulting in a backspin on the ball.
• Pancake Lake : An imaginary place a player (normally libero) goes when they repeatedly pancake a tipped ball or ball headed for the ground.
• Phone Booth : When a blocker's hands seal off every possible attack angle on a set ball. Often referred to as, "It's like trying to hit out of a phone booth."
• Popcorn setting/Sprinkler : When an unskilled setter is sending sets in a random pattern (like popcorn being popped, or like a water sprinkler on the grass).
• Quadruple-double : When a player amasses a double-digit total in four of five statistical categories—aces, kills, blocks, digs, and assists—during a match.
• Quintuple-double : When a player accomplishes ten or more aces, kills, blocks, digs, and assists during a match.
• Rainbow : A shot especially on the beach that is hit over the head of the defender to the far corner and lands cleanly. Also known as a Jumbo Shrimp (due to the arc/shape of the shot).
• Rufio : A cheer done in volleyball, famous from the movie Hook, where a player blocks the opposing player straight down on the opposing players' side. Players scream, Rufio, Rufio, Ru-fi-OOOOOO!!!
• Scrappy : Referring to a team that doesn't let a single ball hit the ground without much effort. (used positively)
• Shag : Picking up and collecting scattered volleyballs.
• Spalding: when the hitters hit the ball and it hits the opposing defensive team in the face or on their body. Spalding refers to the letters of the ball staying on the players face because it hit them so hard.
• Spiketown/Bouncetown: A fictional place that a hitter claims to go to when he/she gets an impressive kill that bounces very high and no one can return (a lot of times near the 3 meter line.)
• Stuff Turkey: A stuff block in which the ball hits the opponents floor before the blocker does; When such an event occurs, a player is said to have had his turkey stuffed.
• Sui-set: A ball set too close to the net directly in to the hands of a waiting blocker; The attacker will get blocked most of the time.
• Tool / Use : An attack which is deflected off an opponent (usually during a block) and is unplayable resulting in a point for the attacking team (also called a bounce off).
• Tough Bacon : Any ball that is played in a way that makes it difficult for the next player to successfully play the ball. For instance, after a bad set the intended hitter might remark "that was tough bacon". Similarly, a setter might remark as such after a bad pass, or a passer might remark as such after a difficult serve.
• Trap : A ball set too close to the net where the hitter typically gets stuffed.
• Triple-double : When a player, during a single match, scores at least ten times in three of five statistical categories: Aces, kills, blocks, digs, and assists.
• Vegas Line: A kill resulting from a powerful hard-line spike that penetrates or beats the opponents' line block. So-named after Sean Rosenthal, a member of the AVP delivered such a memorable kill in Las Vegas, 2005.
• Waterfall Ball: When a players hit goes inside the block of the opposing team and falls down on their side much like a waterfall.
• Yummy: When a player gets a kill out of an overpass from the opposing team.