the.com/dodgeball

means A game in which players on two teams try to hit opponents with thrown balls while avoiding being hit themselves, last side standing wins.

from A plain compound of "dodge" plus "ball." "Dodge" is the older mystery here — it surfaced in English in the 1500s meaning to move evasively or shift aside, but its ultimate source is unknown, with no agreed-upon root. "Ball" goes back through Old English to a Germanic word for a round object, a cousin of words for anything bulging or spherical. Stitch them together and you get exactly what the game is: a thing you throw, and the frantic act of not being where it lands. The pairing as a named playground sport is a relatively modern coinage.