billiard

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   of or relating to billiards

   A billiard ball.

2. 2
   noun

   Pertaining to the game of billiards.

   A billiard table; a billiard ball.

3. 3
   noun

   A shot in billiards or snooker in which the cue ball strikes two other balls; a carom.

4. 4
   noun

   A dynamical system in which a particle alternates between motion in a straight line and specular reflections from a boundary.

From French billard, originally referring to the wooden cue stick, diminutive of Old French bille (“log, tree trunk”), from Vulgar Latin *bilia, probably of Gaulish origin (compare Old Irish bile (“large tree, tree trunk”)), from Proto-Celtic *belyos (“tree”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰolh₃yos (“leaf”), from *bʰleh₃- (“blossom, flower”).

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