call someone's number

English

Verb

call someone's number (third-person singular simple present calls someone's number, present participle calling someone's number, simple past and past participle called someone's number)

1. (American football) To be assigned to carry the ball at the start of a play.
   • 2002, Rich Wolfe, Kurt Warner: And the Last Shall Be First, →ISBN, page 229:

     So on the first play, I asked the quarterback to call my number on an end sweep.

   • 2011, W. S. Gaines, Blood on a Pew: Overcoming Tragedy Through the Truth of Eternity, →ISBN:

     Billy was shocked; he didn't get that call once during spring practice, and now, in the spring game, they want to call his number on the first play.

   • 2015, Mark O'Connell, The Good Father: On Men, Masculinity, and Life in the Family, →ISBN, page 73:

     Now he told me that when the coach had diagrammed plays, he would move to the back of the huddle, in the hope that the coach wouldn't call his number.

2. (by extension, idiomatic) To focus on someone, asking them to prove themselves.
   • 1969, Annmarie Hauck Walsh, The urban challenge to government:

     I am glad to have that comment, Sir. I think you have about called our number on that.

   • 2001, Stuart Kaufman, Engine Parts, →ISBN, page 60:

     "I'm sure about this one," I said. "I'm starting the preparations." “Ok, I'm calling your number on this one. I got your word, and everyone else is out of the way.”

   • 2014 August 13, Sam Wolfson, “Is the growth in nitrous oxide misuse a laughing matter?”, in The Guardian:

     People have certainly died from laughing gas,” he says. “They can get into serious trouble using tanks and masks and they certainly shouldn’t be driving while doing it and should be careful round rivers and swimming pools,” he says. “But the second you get into saying people using nitrous in balloons is a massive issue, people will call your number on that, and they’re right. It’s a concern that it’s going up, the numbers of people using are quite stunning, but it’s not the most dangerous thing by a mile.”

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see call,‎ number.
   • 2005, Wanjiru Waithaka, The Unbroken Spirit, →ISBN, page 218:

     He called her number on his cell phone.