English

Alternative forms

• double header, doubleheader

Noun

double-header ‎(plural double-headers)

1. (sports) A pair of games played one after another between the same teams.

   This afternoon we will have a double-header between the Bears and the Wolves, games at 3pm and 7:30pm.

   • 2011, William B. Gould, IV, Bargaining with Baseball: Labor Relations in an Age of Prosperous Turmoil, page 43,

     The ′40s and ′50s were in advance of the day of the twilight double-header, and most certainly before the more common twilight or “twinight” double-headers, in which the fans must leave so as to empty their seats for a new crowd which is to see the second game at a separately scheduled time.

2. A pair of sporting events, one after the other, at a single venue.

   The NRL season opener at the Olympic stadium will be a double-header: Dragons vs Eels and Souths vs Wests.

   The next jazz double-header at The Sound Lounge will feature the Leonie Cohen Trio and the Sam Hawkins Quartet

   • 1991, Graeme Kent, Double Header: Atlantic City, August 1988, Boxing′s Strangest Fights, 2000, page 227,

     It must have seemed a good idea at the time. The holders of two different versions of the world welterweight title were to top the bill against carefully selected opponents in a double header.

3. A pair of sporting events, one after the other, broadcast on the same television channel.
4. (fishing) The catching of a single fish simultaneously by two fishermen when fishing together.
5. (rail transport) A train pulled by two locomotives.
   • 1929, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen′s Magazine, Volumes 86-87, page 132,

     If this pipe is broken while running as the second engine of a double-header nothing will be lost as the operation of the distributing valve is then similar to that of a triple valve, […] .