. (Baseball) a measure of the effectiveness of a batter at reaching base and advancing other runners, calculated as the sum of the number of bases reached on each hit, divided by the total number of times at bat. A double counts two bases, a triple three, a home run four. Thus a batter with four singles, two doubles and a triple in 20 official times at bat would have a slugging average of 0.550, and a batting average of 0.350. Also called slugging percentage. Compare batting average. [ PJC ]

. (a) A boxing match or prize fight marked rather by heavy hitting than skill. [ Cant or Slang ] (b) A ball game, esp. a baseball game, in which there is much hard hitting of the ball. [ Slang, U. S. ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]