Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
cue stick

cue stick

1 3.8
A long, thin stick used to hit the white ball in pool and billiards
  • noun
  • /kjuː stɪk/
translation icon : taco de billar
  • During the game, she chalked her cue stick to ensure a smooth shot.
  • balls with a cue stick

Yeah, but wait, Dave, if you're trying to hit the ball, some of what matters is the momentum that the the cue stick has that you're imparting on the ball.

Examples

  • Penny and Mike drank Coors and played pool -- that is how it started, Mike leaning into her, teaching her how to hold the cue stick.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Then he bent to the pool table, sliding a cue stick deftly through the crook of his finger and ignoring them.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • There was Garth standing naked on a chair, leaning over a small pool table with a cue stick in his hands.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • One of these dealt with things that one does to prepare to play, such as racking the balls, chalking the cue stick, and breaking the racked balls.

    Academic text (2000)

  • He carefully positioned the cue ball before taking aim with his cue stick.

  • The player leaned over the table, focusing intently on the ball as he prepared to strike with his cue stick.

Synonyms

cue
vscue stick
55 4.4

A long stick used to hit the ball in pool or snooker

is narrower, focusing on use only in certain table games
pool cue
vscue stick
6 3.0

A long thin stick used to hit the small white ball in pool or billiards

is the same item but called by a different common name
pool stick
vscue stick
1 3.2

A long thin wooden tool that you use to hit the white ball in pool or billiards

is the same item but usually named with another familiar term

Surface Forms

cue stick singular
cue sticks plural

Morphology

cue + stick

The meaning is directly and compositionally derivable from 'cue' (a tapered stick used to strike balls) combined with 'stick' (a handheld rod). This noun+noun compound follows a straightforward English compounding pattern and would be immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both constituents (aside from minimal world knowledge of the game).

Etymology

Cue stick may come from the old word cue, which once meant 'tail', because the long thin stick looked like a tail and was used to touch the ball. So cue stick now means the long rod used to hit the cue ball.