the.com/boules
Chess for people who'd rather day-drink in gravel than think.
means A French outdoor game where you lob or roll metal balls at a small target ball, aiming to land closest while knocking your opponents' balls out of the way.
from From French 'boule,' meaning ball, tracing back to Latin 'bulla' — a round swelling or bubble, the same root that gives us 'bowl' and the papal 'bull' (named for its round wax seal). 'Boules' is the plural, used as the game's name much like English says 'billiards.' The specific gravel-court version played across southern France is often called pétanque, but 'boules' remains the broad, generic term for the ball-throwing family of games.
- name meaning
- French for balls, refreshingly literal
- the target
- a tiny wooden ball called the cochonnet, meaning piglet
- scoring style
- closest ball wins, like horseshoes with more wine
- surface rule
- played on rough gravel, never manicured grass