Word.ws English Dictionary

Chinese eight-ball

Chinese eight-ball noun: a pocket billiards game for two players, combining the play of eight-ball (except by shooting object balls into the cue ball instead of the other way round) with the shooting style of carom billiards games.

Noun

Chinese eight-ball (uncountable)

  1. A pocket billiards game for two players, combining the play of eight-ball (except by shooting object balls into the cue ball instead of the other way round) with the shooting style of carom billiards games.

Origin of Chinese eight-ball

The game is of American origin, and probably takes its name from the fanciful notion that things might be done backwards on the other side of the world (compare Chinese fire drill).

Questions about Chinese eight-ball

What does Chinese eight-ball mean?
Chinese eight-ball means a pocket billiards game for two players, combining the play of eight-ball (except by shooting object balls into the cue ball instead of the other way round) with the shooting style of carom billiards games.
What part of speech is Chinese eight-ball?
Chinese eight-ball is a noun.

Words near Chinese eight-ball in the dictionary

  1. Chinese drives
  2. Chinese dumpling
  3. Chinese dumplings
  4. Chinese edible frog
  5. Chinese edible frogs
  6. Chinese eight-ball
  7. Chinese elder
  8. Chinese elders
  9. Chinese elm
  10. Chinese elms
  11. Chinese Empire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chinese 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:

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