"eight-ball" meaning in English

See eight-ball in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-eight-ball.ogg [Australia] Forms: eight-balls [plural]
Etymology: eight + ball Etymology templates: {{compound|en|eight|ball}} eight + ball Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} eight-ball (countable and uncountable, plural eight-balls)
  1. (uncountable) A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets. Tags: uncountable
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-noun-kAqhzK9~
  2. (countable) The billiard ball, almost always black, bearing the number eight. Tags: countable Categories (topical): Eight
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-noun-led5e2cg Disambiguation of Eight: 21 42 7 3 19 9
  3. (countable, slang) A portion of cocaine or methamphetamine weighing ¹⁄₈ of an ounce, or 3.5 grams. Tags: countable, slang
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-noun-KEPYdIF1
  4. (countable, slang, ethnic slur) A black person. Tags: countable, ethnic, slang, slur
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-noun-PG6l68SO Categories (other): English ethnic slurs
  5. (countable, aviation, slang) A spherical attitude indicator. Tags: countable, slang Categories (topical): Aviation
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-noun-sAFSTlqz Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 18 29 6 1 36 10 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 16 23 12 2 38 9 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 18 26 7 2 36 11 Topics: aeronautics, aerospace, aviation, business, engineering, natural-sciences, physical-sciences
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: 8 ball, eight ball Derived forms: behind the eight-ball, Chinese eight-ball

Verb

Audio: En-au-eight-ball.ogg [Australia] Forms: eight-balls [present, singular, third-person], eight-balling [participle, present], eight-balled [participle, past], eight-balled [past]
Etymology: eight + ball Etymology templates: {{compound|en|eight|ball}} eight + ball Head templates: {{en-verb}} eight-ball (third-person singular simple present eight-balls, present participle eight-balling, simple past and past participle eight-balled)
  1. (pool, transitive) To outplay (an opponent) by potting all one's color balls and then the black (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one. Tags: transitive Coordinate_terms: nine-ball
    Sense id: en-eight-ball-en-verb-1NjBN7G4 Topics: games, pool
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: 8 ball, eight ball

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for eight-ball meaning in English (7.3kB)

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  "derived": [
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      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "behind the eight-ball"
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      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
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        "A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets."
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        "(uncountable) A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets."
      ],
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        "(countable) The billiard ball, almost always black, bearing the number eight."
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        "countable"
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          "ref": "2003, House of Sand and Fog, 00:43:39",
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          "ref": "2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17",
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          "ref": "1960, John Marshall Eggleston, Sheldon Baron, Donald C. Cheatham, Fixed-base Simulation Study of a Pilot's Ability to Control a Winged-satellite Vehicle During High-drag Variable-lift Entries, page 11",
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          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2011, David A. Mindell, Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight, page 254",
          "text": "He kept his eyes outside, stole a few glances at the \"eight ball\" attitude indictors inside, and relied on Irwin's callouts.",
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        "A spherical attitude indicator."
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          "word": "nine-ball"
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        {
          "ref": "2008, Edward Keating, The Joy of Ex: A Novel",
          "text": "She whips me in the first game of pool, I do not even get a shot. Eight-balled from the break.\n“Have you been practising?” I ask my sister.\n“Some,” she says, “play again?”\n“One more.”\nMy sister beats me at pool in public a second time. I claim some dignity back by potting two of my balls before Tammy sinks the black.",
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        "To outplay (an opponent) by potting all one's color balls and then the black (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one."
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        "(pool, transitive) To outplay (an opponent) by potting all one's color balls and then the black (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one."
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  "lang_code": "en",
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        "A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets."
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        "(uncountable) A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets."
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        "(countable) The billiard ball, almost always black, bearing the number eight."
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          "ref": "1960, John Marshall Eggleston, Sheldon Baron, Donald C. Cheatham, Fixed-base Simulation Study of a Pilot's Ability to Control a Winged-satellite Vehicle During High-drag Variable-lift Entries, page 11",
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          "ref": "2008, Edward Keating, The Joy of Ex: A Novel",
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      ],
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        "To outplay (an opponent) by potting all one's color balls and then the black (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one."
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        "(pool, transitive) To outplay (an opponent) by potting all one's color balls and then the black (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one."
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        "transitive"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "8 ball"
    },
    {
      "word": "eight ball"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "eight-ball"
  ],
  "word": "eight-ball"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.