broken field

English

Noun

broken field (plural broken fields)

1. (rugby, American football) A field in which there are defensive players from the other team between the player who has the ball and the goal.
   • 1905, Spalding's Official Foot Ball Guide, page 169:

     Quarter-backs this year who have gained considerable notice are Fallis of Haskell Indians and Pooler of Kansas University, they both being very good in a broken field.

   • 1972, Chronicle of American Physical Education, page 383:

     The forward passer receives the ball, runs a yard or two as a feint, and then, with scarcely a look over the broken field, selects a person and a place and throws the ball.

   • 2019 October 19, Robert Kitson, “England into World Cup semi-finals after bruising victory over Australia”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media:

     Barely two minutes after the interval the margin was reduced to just a single point after Elliot Daly, under a bit of pressure, knocked on 40 metres from his own line and gave the Wallabies a broken field to play with.

2. A field that has been plowed.
   • 1906, Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews, Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, page 72:

     The birds are gregarious even during the nesting season, and in spring and summer seem to be equally busy “ ploughing up ” the earth in the already broken field with their long, crowlike bills; naturally such action creates trouble with the farmer, but on the whole, an examination of the constituents of the bird's diet, shows that he is a greater insect destroyer than a crop destroyer.

   • 1916, Sara Teasdale, “The Broken Field”, in George Park Fisher, George Burton Adams, Henry Walcott Farnam, editors, The Yale Review, page 755:

     My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain