cue ball
5
3.4
- noun
- /kju bɔl/
:
bola blanca
- He rolled the cue ball to the other end of the table, but not hard enough for it to return.
- hit the cue ball
- strike the cue ball
- spin the cue ball
So the system will replicate with the cue ball coming at it, right?
- So the system will replicate with the cue ball coming at it, right?
Examples
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Murphy sees his opportunity, pulls the cue ball from the table, and rolls it silently across the carpet toward Rocco.
Fiction book (1999) -
What most people don't realize is that sidespin has no appreciable effect on the tangent line unless the cue ball has sufficient forward roll.
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The ideal break is when you send the cue ball in a Direct Line to the lead ball.
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The balls crack as the cue ball breaks the rack.
Fiction book (1993) -
Cue ball, corner pocket.
-
Dunne slings a cue ball the length of the table, breaking the rack with a crack like a pistol shot.
Fiction book (1990) -
He hears low echoing laughter through the club, and the sound of the cue ball breaking and sending pool balls spinning around the table.
Fiction book (2001) -
The player carefully aimed the cue ball before taking the shot at the triangle of colored balls.
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To make the perfect break, you need to hit the cue ball with just the right amount of force.
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After striking the cue ball, it traveled straight down the table and knocked one of the colored balls into the corner pocket.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the ball struck with the cue' is directly and compositionally derived from 'cue' (the stick used to strike) + 'ball' (a round play object), following a common instrument+object compound pattern. This is a concrete, non-idiomatic concept found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Cue ball comes from the word cue, the long stick players use to hit balls in pool. Picture the white ball being struck by the cue to move the other balls, so cue ball means 'the ball the player strikes'.