switch-hitter
switch-hitter
1. In baseball, someone who is able to bat both left-handed and right-handed. I thought it was a great idea to become a switch-hitter, but I ended up with a pretty lousy batting average as a result. They brought out their switch-hitter to deal with the new left-handed pitcher.
2. slang By extension, someone who is bisexual. We were together for nearly nine months before I found out he was a switch-hitter. I experimented with women in college, but I'm not a switch-hitter or anything.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
switch-hitter
1. n. a ballplayer who bats either right-handed or left-handed. (Baseball.) I’m not a switch-hitter. In fact, I can hardly hit the ball at all.
2. n. a bisexual person. (From sense 1) Bart finally decided he was a switch-hitter and asked Brad for a date since Mary was busy.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
switch hitter
Originally and literally, a baseball player who can bat either left-handed or right-handed. This meaning dates from the first half of the 1900s but since the mid-1900s the term has been used figuratively for a bisexual person. Further, it is occasionally used for someone or something equally adept at two jobs or in two capacities. Thus an online physics article had, “New, Unusual Semi-Conductor is a Switch Hitter” (January 30, 2009), turning from one type to another via a simple change in temperature.
See also: hitter, switch
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- switch hitter
- southpaw
- heavy-handed
- lefthanded
- left-handed compliment
- left-handed compliment, a
- hand over the reins
- left-handed wife
- handed
- wrong side of someone