Definition of Sewer

Powdered chalk housed in a cube. This chalk is rubbed into the tip of your cue to help with grip between the tip of the cue and the cue ball. This is more important to use if you are using a medium or hard tip, as opposed to a soft tip, which already provides some good grip. As a warning when purchasing a type of chalk, there is much debate over which chalk offers the best friction, so you best do your research!

This describes balls that are not able to be made in a pocket, either because they are high up on the table, in a different pocket, or in a cluster that makes the shot difficult. This condition of being out of play obviously exists on different difficulty levels.

A combination shot, where hitting the first ball rubs it against the center connecting line of two frozen object balls throwing the second out.

The triangular device, generally plastic, used to group the balls in a pyramid form prior to the beginning of a game.

This is a bank shot that goes off of the head rail and then straight to the pocket at the other end of the table.

Also nurse shot, nursery shot. In carom games such as straight rail, balkline and cushion caroms, where all the balls are kept near each other and a cushion, and with very soft shots, can be "nursed" down a rail on multiple successful shots that effectively replicate the same ball setup so that the nurse shot can be repeated again (and again, etc.). Excessive use of nurse shots by players skilled enough to set them up and pull them off repeatedly at will is what led to the development of the balkline carom billiards game variations, and repetitive shot limitation rules in English billiards. A clear example of why: In 1907, Tom Reece scored a record break of 499,135 consecutive points over a period of five weeks, without a miss, using the cradle cannon nurse shot.

The interlocking connection between the butt and shaft ends of a two-piece cue stick. Usually connects via means of a steel or wooden pin, and may be protected by a collar of metal or some other material, or may connect wood-on-wood.

This can be a shot where the best option for you is to sink a ball in you opponents pocket in the game of one pocket. This can also refer to the act of offering an opponent a ball adjustment to even the playing field.

Also lady's aid or girly stick. A denigrating term for the mechanical bridge.

The number of balls pocketed in an inning in pool (e.g., a run of five balls), or points scored in a row in carom billiards (e.g., a run of five points). Compare British break (sense 2), which is applied to pool as well as snooker in British English.

A tournament format in which a player must lose two matches in order to be eliminated.

A cluster of balls. In snooker, the bunch of reds that are typically left below the pink spot in the early stages of a frame, not including those reds that have been released into pottable positions.

This is when you aim at one particular object ball that is not meant to go in the pocket, but is instead meant to contact another object ball which will continue the combination process or be pocketed.

Two or more object balls that are touching or are close together.

This is the portion of your cue below joint, and includes the forearm, handle, sleeve, and the cap. Usually made with exotic wood and creatively designed to be pleasing to the eye, and often times wrapped at the handle, this is the attractive portion of the cue stick. (Sometimes this word is used alone to refer to the butt sleeve portion of the cue stick).

Slang for a mechanical bridge.

When two or more object balls are frozen or nearly frozen, such that cue-ball contact with one object ball, without the necessity of great accuracy, will almost certainly pocket an intended object ball in the cluster. The most common form of dead arrangements are the dead combination or dead combo (a combination shot in which contact with the first object ball will pocket another one), and the dead kiss, in which contact with the first object ball will pocket it off of another one. See also wired.

This is a shot involving contact between the cue ball and an object ball which allows the cue ball to contact another object in order to sink a pocket with the second object ball.

A reference to the amount of English applied to the object ball from the cue ball.

Same as cheating the pocket. Principally used in snooker.

New Zealand Billiards and Snooker Association.

The Union Mondiale de Billard (French for World Union of Billiards) is the world governing body for carom (carambole) billiard games. The organization was founded in Madrid, Spain on 1 June 1959, and is dedicated to promoting the modern carom billiards games. The UMB monitors and controls international carom competitions and tournaments, and organizes an annual World Three-cushion Billiards Championship.

Nine Ball is a rotation game so a player must hit the lowest numbered ball first.
The object of the game is pocket the 9-ball on any legal shot.

Billiard Congress of America. The official governing body for pocket billiards in the United States.