object ball
- noun
- Specialized
:
bola objetivo
- What will that cue balls spin impart to the object ball and where will the object ball go and what balls will it affect?
Examples
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You can also change the angle coming off the object ball by using a follow or a draw shot.
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In a game of billiards, the player aimed to strike the object ball with precision to pocket it.
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The player carefully calculated how to hit the object ball to set up for his next shot.
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To win the match, she needed to hit the object ball first and send it into the corner pocket.
Synonyms
4
2.9
A hard round ball used to play billiards on a table
1
2.7
A small round object that players hit in pool, usually numbered and colored
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'object' (a thing) and 'ball' (a round play object) only partially convey the specialized sense 'the ball intended to be struck first'; 'object' must be understood in the sense of 'target' or 'object of the shot', which is a domain-specific usage. Because the correct reading requires some cue-sports knowledge or awareness that 'object' can mean 'target', the expression is partially but not fully predictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Object ball comes from pool and other cue games. It gives a clear picture: the object (the thing you want) is the ball you must hit first with the cue ball, so the name means 'the ball to be struck'.