billiards

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A game played on a rectangular cloth-covered table with raised cushioned edges, in which a cue is used to hit three small, hard balls against one another or the side cushions of the table.
2. n. One of several similar games, sometimes using a table with pockets, as in pool.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A game played by two or more persons, on a rectangular table of special construction (see billiard-table), with ivory balls, which the players, by means of cues, cause to strike against each other. Formerly in the United States the game was played with four balls on a table having six pockets, the players scoring both for caroms and for driving the balls into the pockets. (See carom.) This is nearly the present English game. Since, however, expert players could continue an inning at the game thus played almost without limit, the pockets were dispensed with and counting was made to depend entirely upon caroms. Later, professional players adopted what is known as the French game, in which only three balls are used, and this was modified to the champions game, in which a line, called a balkline, is drawn crossing each corner of the table diagonally, within which two counts only can be made. Experts now play also cushion-caroms, in which the cue-ball must touch the cushion before hitting the second object-ball, or hit the second ball again on a return from the cushion; the balkline game, which is the same as the champions' game, but with balk-lines 14 inches from the cushion all round the table; and the bank-game, in which the cue-ball must hit the cushion before touching any other ball. [The singular form, billiard, is occasionally used, and is always employed in composition.

Wiktionary

1. n. games, UK A two-player cue sport played with two cue balls and one red ball, on a snooker sized table.
2. n. games, US The collective noun for games played on a tabletop, usually with several balls, one or more of which is hit by a cue.
3. n. Plural form of billiard.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A game played with ivory balls o a cloth-covered, rectangular table, bounded by elastic cushions. The player seeks to impel his ball with his cue so that it shall either strike (carom upon) two other balls, or drive another ball into one of the pockets with which the table sometimes is furnished.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of several games played on rectangular cloth-covered table (with cushioned edges) in which long tapering cue sticks are used to propel ivory (or composition) balls