different between billiards vs bagatelle

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?l??dz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b?l.j?dz/
• Hyphenation: bil?liards

Etymology 1

From French billard, originally referring to the wooden cue stick, diminutive of Old French bille (“log, tree trunk”), from Vulgar Latin *bilia, probably of Gaulish origin (compare Old Irish bile (“large tree, tree trunk”)), from Proto-Celtic *belyos (“tree”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?olh?yos (“leaf”), from *b?leh?- (“blossom, flower”).

Noun

billiards (uncountable)

1. (games, Britain) A two-player cue sport played with two cue balls and one red ball, on a snooker sized table.

   Synonym: English billiards

2. (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.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:cue sport

Translations

See also

• pool
• snooker

Etymology 2

Noun

billiards

1. plural of billiard

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French bagatelle, from Italian bagattella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bæ???t?l/

Noun

bagatelle (plural bagatelles)

1. A trifle; an insubstantial thing.
   • 1782, Charles Macklin, Love a-la-Mode 21:,

     Sir C.?Oh! dear madam, don't ask me, it's a very foolish song—a mere bagatelle.
     Char.?Oh! Sir Callaghan, I will admit of no excuse.

   • 1850, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (volume 68, page 226)

     […] the jails were larger and fuller, the number of murders was incomparably greater, the thefts and swindlings in the old country were a bagatelle to the large depredations there […]

   • 1879 September 6, "Railway Projects", Railway World, 5 (36): 853

     The repayment of the cost of the western part of the road, whatever it might be, would be a mere bagatelle, for the older provinces would have been enriched by the stimulus given to business by the opening up of the plains, […]

   Synonyms: bag of shells; see also Thesaurus:trifle

2. A short piece of literature or of instrumental music, typically light or playful in character.
   • 2007, Norman Lebrecht, The Life And Death of Classical Music, page 7

     One afternoon in 1920. a young pianist sat down in a shuttered room in the capital of defeated Germany and played a Bagatelle by Beethoven.

3. A game similar to billiards played on an oblong table with pockets or arches at one end only.
   • 1895, Hugh Legge, "The Repton Club", in John Matthew Knapp (ed.), The Universities and the Social Problem, page 139

     For some time they did nothing save box, but at last they went down to the bagatelle room, and played bagatelle for a bit. They marked this advance in civilization by prodding holes in the ceiling with the bagatelle cues, which gave the ceiling the appearance of a cloth target after a Gatling gun had been shooting at it.

4. Any of several smaller, wooden table top games developed from the original bagatelle in which the pockets are made of pins; also called pin bagatelle, hit-a-pin bagatelle, jaw ball.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• carom
• pachinko
• pinball

Verb

bagatelle (third-person singular simple present bagatelles, present participle bagatelling, simple past and past participle bagatelled)

1. (intransitive, rare) To meander or move around, in a manner similar to the ball in the game of bagatelle.
2. (transitive, rare) To bagatellize; to regard as a bagatelle.

Further reading

• bagatelle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• bagatelle in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• bagatelle at OneLook Dictionary Search

French

Etymology

From Italian bagattella.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba.?a.t?l/

Noun

bagatelle f (plural bagatelles)

1. bagatelle, trinket, bauble
2. (food) trifle

Descendants

• ? Danish: bagatel
• ? Dutch: bagatel
• ? English: bagatelle
• ? German: Bagatelle

Further reading

• “bagatelle” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Noun

bagatelle f

1. plural of bagatella