baize n : a bright green fabric napped to resemble felt; used to cover gaming tables

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪz

Noun

1. A coarse woolen stuff with a long nap; -- usually dyed in plain colors.
   • 1719: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

     my goods being all English manufacture, such as cloths, stuffs, baize, and things particularly valuable and desirable in the country, I found means to sell them to a very great advantage...

   • 1885: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

     At the further end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with a red baize; and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received into the doctor's cabinet.

1. A thick woolen cloth used for coverings (on billiard tables, bird cages etc.)

Baize is a coarse woollen (or in cheaper variants cotton) cloth, sometimes called "felt" in American English based on a similarity in appearance. It is most often used on snooker and billiards tables to cover the and .

For gaming use it is traditionally dyed green, in mimicry of a lawn (see Cue sport, "History"), thus the common (British English) phrase "the green baize", a metaphoric way to refer to snooker itself. Today, a wide variety of colours are now used for tables (for other uses such as clothing it has always been available in other colours).

The word is related to the cloth term "bays" (sometimes encountered as "bays and says").

See also

• Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire