English

Alternative forms

• 8 ball
• eight ball

Noun

eight-ball ‎(plural eight-balls)

1. A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets.
2. The billards ball, almost always black, bearing the number eight.
3. (slang) A portion of cocaine or methamphetamine weighing 1/8 of an ounce, or 3.5 grams.
   • 2003, House of Sand and Fog, 00:43:39:

     (a policeman confiding to a friend) ".. She had welts and bruises all over. So, one night we get called out there again, and I slip down their hallway and stuff two eight balls in his closet. Turns out he was on parole. He goes back to jail, she's safe, and I slept like a baby."

Derived terms

• behind the eight-ball

Verb

eight-ball ‎(third-person singular simple present eight-balls, present participle eight-balling, simple past and past participle eight-balled)

1. (pool) To pot all one's colour balls and then the black ball (or eight-ball) without the opponent potting a single one.
   • 2008, Edward Keating , The Joy of Ex: A Novel

     She whips me in the first game of pool, I do not even get a shot. Eight-balled from the break.

     “Have you been practising?” I ask my sister.

     “Some,” she says, “play again?”

     “One more.”

     My 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.

Coordinate terms

• nine-ball