Cue sports are also collectively referred to as billiards, though this term has more specific connotations in some varieties of English.

Enthusiasts of the sport have included Mozart, Louis XIV of France, Marie Antoinette, Immanuel Kant, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, George Washington, Jules Grévy, Charles Dickens, George Armstrong Custer, Theodore Roosevelt, Lewis Carroll, W. C. Fields, Babe Ruth, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason.

The word billiard may have evolved from the French word billart or billette, meaning 'stick', in reference to the mace, an implement similar to a golf putter, and which was the forerunner to the modern cue; however, the term's origin could have been from French bille, meaning 'ball'.

This refers to the early practice of using the tail or butt of the mace, instead of its club foot, to strike the ball when it lay against a rail cushion.

Cushions began to be stuffed with substances to allow the balls to rebound, in order to enhance the appeal of the game.

[4] The demand for tables and other equipment was initially met in Europe by John Thurston and other furniture makers of the era.

[4] Early billiard games involved various pieces of additional equipment, including the "arch" (related to the croquet hoop), "port" (a different hoop, often rectangular), and "king" (a pin or skittle near the arch) in the early 17th to late 18th century,[7][4] but other game variants, relying on the cushions (and pockets cut into them), were being formed that would go on to play fundamental roles in the development of modern billiards.

One type of obstacle remained a feature of many tables, originally as a hazard and later as a target, in the form of pockets, or holes partly cut into the table bed and partly into the cushions, leading to the rise of pocket billiards, including "pool" games such as eight-ball, nine-ball, straight pool, and one-pocket; Russian pyramid; snooker; English billiards; and others.

Snooker, though a pocket billiards variant and closely related in its equipment and origin to the game of English billiards, is a professional sport organized at an international level, and its rules bear little resemblance to those of modern pool, pyramid, and other such games.

Blackball (English-style eight-ball) sets are similar, but have unmarked groups of red and yellow balls instead of solids and stripes, known as "casino" style.

Billiard balls have been made from many different materials since the start of the game, including clay, bakelite, celluloid, crystallite, ivory, plastic, steel and wood.

The search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns, but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters.

It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material.

The first viable substitute was celluloid, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, but the material was volatile, sometimes exploding during manufacture, and was highly flammable.

High-quality tables have a bed made of thick slate, in three pieces to prevent warping and changes due to temperature and humidity.

The slates on modern carom tables are usually heated to stave off moisture and provide a consistent playing surface.

The cloth used in upscale pool (and snooker) halls and home billiard rooms is "faster" (i.e., provides less friction, allowing the balls to roll farther across the table bed), and competition-quality pool cloth is made from 100% worsted wool.

A rack is the name given to a frame (usually wood, plastic or aluminium) used to organize billiard balls at the beginning of a game.

The shaft of the cue is of smaller circumference, usually tapering to an 0.4 to 0.55 inches (10 to 14 mm) terminus called a ferrule (usually made of fiberglass or brass in better cues), where a rounded leather tip is affixed, flush with the ferrule, to make final contact with balls.

Cheap cues are generally made of pine, low-grade maple (and formerly often of ramin, which is now endangered), or other low-quality wood, with inferior plastic ferrules.

Recently, carbon fiber woven composites have been developed and utilized by top professional players and amateurs.

For snooker, bridges are normally available in three forms, their use depending on how the player is hampered; the standard rest is a simple cross, the 'spider' has a raised arch around 12 cm with three grooves to rest the cue in and for the most awkward of shots, the 'giraffe' (or 'swan' in England) which has a raised arch much like the 'spider' but with a slender arm reaching out around 15 cm with the groove.

Cue tip chalk (invented in its modern form by straight rail billiard pro William A. Spinks and chemist William Hoskins in 1897)[14][15] is made by crushing silica and the abrasive substance corundum or aloxite[15] (aluminium oxide),[16][17] into a powder.

English billiards used to be one of the two most-competitive cue sports along with the carom game balkline, at the turn of the 20th century and is still enjoyed today in Commonwealth countries.

Some of the best players of straight billiards developed the skill to gather the balls in a corner or along the same rail for the purpose of playing a series of nurse shots to score a seemingly limitless number of points.

The first straight rail professional tournament was held in 1879 where Jacob Schaefer Sr. scored 690 points in a single turn[13][page needed] (that is, 690 separate strokes without a miss).

This in turn saw the three-cushion version emerge, where the cue ball must make three separate cushion contacts during a shot.

Even within games types (e.g. eight-ball), there may be variations, and people may play recreationally using relaxed or local rules.

Each pocketed ball is worth its number, and the player with the highest score at the end of the rack is the winner.

In the United Kingdom, snooker is by far the most popular cue sport at the competitive level, and major national pastime along with association football and cricket.