Word.ws English Dictionary

behind the eight-ball

behind the eight-ball prepositional phrase: in a difficult situation or tight spot; at a disadvantage.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In a difficult situation or tight spot; at a disadvantage.
    • After his last two projects failed, he was really behind the eight-ball.
    • He was desperate, playing behind the eight-ball.
    Synonyms:
    snookered

Synonyms of behind the eight-ball

Origin of behind the eight-ball

First use appears c. 1923 in the Buffalo Evening Times. Thought to derive from the game of Kelly pool, in which players assigned balls numerically higher than 8, that is, balls that are behind the 8 ball in order, have little possibility of winning, or from eight-ball pool, where one cannot contact the eight ball on a shot before it is the legal ball, frustrating shots, or more generally, from the fact that the 8 ball is considered harder to aim at because of its color.

Questions about behind the eight-ball

What does behind the eight-ball mean?
Behind the eight-ball means in a difficult situation or tight spot; at a disadvantage.
What part of speech is behind the eight-ball?
Behind the eight-ball is a prepositional phrase.

Words near behind the eight-ball in the dictionary

  1. behind the counter
  2. behind the curtain
  3. behind the curve
  4. behind the ear
  5. behind the eight ball
  6. behind the eight-ball
  7. behind the eightball
  8. behind the scene
  9. behind the scenes
  10. behind the times
  11. behind the wheel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: behind the eight-ball (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-behind the eight-ball.ogg.

Cite this entry: “behind the eight-ball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/behind_the_eight-ball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.