eight-balls

Noun

eight-ball (countable and uncountable, plural eight-balls)

1. (uncountable) A pocket billiards (pool) game played with sixteen balls (a cue ball and fifteen object balls) on a pool table with six pockets.
2. (countable) The billiard ball, almost always black, bearing the number eight.
3. (countable, slang) A portion of cocaine or methamphetamine weighing ¹⁄₈ of an ounce, or 3.5 grams.
   • (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."2003, House of Sand and Fog, 00:43:39
4. (countable, ethnic, slang, slur) A black person.
   • When a white fellow gets in the ring with an eight ball the eight ball's got no chance. You see, 'cause they call boxing the sweet science. And that's where your colored just runs into trouble. That's just that science part.
     Yeah, but Joe Louis is a big 'un.2005, “Creed, OK”, in Carnivàle, episode 17
5. (countable, slang) A spherical attitude indicator.
   • The angle-of-attack error indicator, located to the right of the attitude "eight-ball," requires some explanation.1960, John Marshall Eggleston, Sheldon Baron, Donald C. Cheatham, Fixed-base Simulation Study of a Pilot's Ability to Control a Winged-satellite Vehicle During High-drag Variable-lift Entries, page 11
6. (countable) A kind of spherical microphone.

See all 7 meanings of eight-ball