inning

An inning is one part of a baseball or softball game. You can think of it like a chapter in the story of the game. In a full inning, both teams get a turn: one team bats and tries to score, and the other team fields and tries to get three outs. Then they switch places.

If you've ever watched a baseball game, you might hear "top of the first" or "bottom of the seventh." That tells you which half of the inning it is and which team is batting. The visiting team bats in the top half, and the home team bats in the bottom half. A standard game has nine innings, but if the score is tied, the game can go into extra innings.

An inning is a basic unit of play in baseball and softball. A full inning has two halves. In one half, the visiting team bats. In the other half, the home team bats. Each batting team keeps hitting until three outs are recorded, and then the teams switch roles.

This is why people talk about the "top" and "bottom" of an inning. The top is the first half, and the bottom is the second half. In most standard baseball games, there are nine innings. If the score is tied after nine, the game continues into extra innings until one team finishes an inning with more runs.

The word is also sometimes used in a wider, figurative way. Someone might say a project, debate, or recovery is "in its first inning" to mean it is still in an early stage. That use comes from baseball, where the number of innings helps people understand how far the game has gone. So whether people mean sports or use the word more loosely, the idea is the same: it marks a clear part of something bigger.