The following is an encyclopedic glossary of traditional English-language terms used in the three overarching cue sports Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber cushions disciplines: pocket billiards Pool, also known as pocket billiards, is the general term for a family of cue sports played on a pool table with six receptacles called pockets along the rails, into which balls are deposited as the main goal of play (pool), which denotes a host of games played on a table with six pockets; carom billiards Carom billiards, sometimes called carambole billiards or simply carambole , is the overarching title of a family of billiards games generally played on cloth-covered, 5 by 10 feet (approximately 1.5 × 3 m) pocketless tables, which often feature heated slate beds. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or "counts" referring to the various carom games played on a table without pockets; and snooker Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a large green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regulation table is 12 ft × 6 ft (3.7 m × 1.8 m). It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white cue ball, 15 red balls worth one point each, and six balls of different, played on a large pocket table, and which has a sports culture unto itself distinct from pool. There are also hybrid pocket/carom games such as English billiards English billiards, called simply billiards in many former British colonies and in Great Britain where it originated, is a hybrid form of carom and pocket billiards played on a billiard table. Billiards is less well known as the "English game", the "all-in game" and the "common game".
Language The term "billiards" is sometimes used to refer to all of the cue sports, to a specific class of them, or to specific ones such as English billiards; this article uses the term in its generic sense unless otherwise noted.
The labels "British British English, or UK English or English English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English "as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain..."" or "UK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland[note 7] is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing" as applied to entries in this glossary refer to terms originating in the UK and also used in countries that were fairly recently part of the British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom, that had originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a and/or are part of the Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the Commonwealth and previously as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states, all but two of which were formerly part of the British Empire. The member states co-operate within a framework of common values and goals as outlined in the, as opposed to US American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States (and, often, Canadian Canadian English is the variety of English used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians (85% of the population) have some knowledge of English (2006 census). Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language. Outside Quebec, 76% of Canadians speak English natively. Canadian English contains elements of British English in its) terminology. The terms "American" or "US" as applied here refer generally to North American usage. However, due to the predominance of US-originating terminology in most internationally competitive pool (as opposed to snooker), US terms are also common in the pool context in other countries in which English is at least a minority language, and US terms predominate in carom billiards as well. Similarly, British terms predominate in the world of snooker, English billiards and blackball, regardless of the players' nationalities.
The term "blackball" is used in this glossary to refer to both blackball and eight-ball pool Blackball is a pool (pocket billiards) game that is popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and several other countries. In the UK and Ireland it is usually called simply "pool". The game is played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets. Blackball is an internationally as played in the Commonwealth, as a shorthand. Blackball was chosen because it is less ambiguous ("eight-ball pool" is too easily confused with the related "eight-ball Eight-ball, sometimes called stripes and solids and, more rarely, bigs and littles or highs and lows, is a pool game popular in much of the world, and the subject of international amateur and professional competition. Played on a pool table with six pockets, the game is so universally known in some countries that beginners are often unaware of"), and blackball is globally standardized by an International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee is a corporation based in Lausanne, Switzerland, created by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas on 23 June 1894. Its membership consists of the 205 National Olympic Committees-recognized governing body, the World Pool-Billiard Association The World Pool-Billiard Association is the international governing body for pocket billiards (and also sactions rules and events for carom billiards games as well, in cooperation with other bodies). The group was formed in 1987, and was initially headed by a provisional board of directors consisting of representatives from Japan, the United States, (WPA); meanwhile, its ancestor, eight-ball pool, is largely a folk game, like North American bar pool, and to the extent that its rules have been codified, they have been done so by competing authorities with different rulesets. (For the same reason, the glossary's information on eight-ball and nine-ball Nine-ball is a contemporary form of pool, with historical beginnings rooted in the United States and traceable to the 1920s. The game may be played in social and recreational settings by any number of players and subject to whatever rules are agreed upon beforehand, or in league and tournament settings in which the number of players and the rules draws principally on the stable WPA rules, because there are many competing amateur and even professional leagues with divergent rules for these games.)
Foreign-language terms are generally not within the scope of this list, unless they have become an integral part of billiards terminology in English (e.g. massé), or they are crucial to meaningful discussion of a game not widely known in the English-speaking world.
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Billiards Forum Editor
hu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GM
If there are any . terms. throughout the 8 ball Billiards rules that you do not understand, you can search our billiard . terms glossary. in the search box near the top left of the page, or search the billiard . terms glossary. directly. . ... However, if the . cue. ball is scratched when making the 8-Ball on the break, the opponent wins the game. 5. American . Cue Sports. Alliance (ACA)...is...same as BCA. 6. The Association for Pool (TAP)...is...8-Ball on the break wins the game. ...
