inning

English

Back-formation from innings, mistaken to be plural of the time period, not the entries of the batters/batsmen.

inning (plural innings)

(baseball) A period of play in which members of a visiting baseball team attempt to hit a baseball pitched by the opposing home team until three players are called out, followed by a similar attempt by members of the home baseball team against the visiting team's pitching. There are nine or more innings in a regulation baseball game.
It is a baseball tradition to sing "Take Me Out To the Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch.
(softball) A similar period of play.
We batted around in our half of the inning.
(billiards) A player (or team)'s turn at the table to make shots until ended by a miss or a foul.
A chance or opportunity to perform some deed or act.
We are in just the second inning of our quest to enter this new market.
(obsolete) The gathering of a crop; harvesting.
- 1563, Richarde Jugge, Anno Quinto Reginae Elizabethe:
  […] for the mowing, reaping, shering, getting or inning of corne, […]
(obsolete) Lands recovered from the sea.
- 1880, Archaeologia Cantiana:
  One of the earliest ‘innings’ of Walland Marsh, after the Norman Conquest,‥has been ever since called Becket's Innings, as this Archbishop has the credit of promoting it.

a period of play in baseball

inning

inning m (plural innings)