- Manu Ginobili, a member of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, is known for his way of exaggerating contact by falling over, so through eponymy, a term was created to represent this action. The term originally referred to cases in which Manu Ginobili performed the action, but it underwent widening to now refer to situations involving any basketball players. This is a derogatory term to describe one's cheap way of playing the sport. It is often difficult for a referee to determine if one is faking a fall, so (s)he usually assumes that it is the offensive player's fault. Another word that is more commonly used for the same type of action is 'flop'. Ginobili'd was probably coined by someone who is not a fan of the Spurs and wanted to highlight a negative aspect of their team, which is Ginobili's dramatic style.
ginobili'd
verb past participle form; other word formation type eponymy
charged with a foul in a basketball game after a player on the opposing team intentionally falls over to make it seem as if (s)he was run into
Etymology : This is an eponym that was formed by taking the last name of Manu Ginobili, changing it to a common noun, and adding the suffix -'d, which made it into a past participle.
Source : Oh wow, he was just ginobili'd. (Houston Rockets Commentator on FSN Houston, 11/29/08)
Last modified: 30 November 2008