the.com/masse
Hitting the cue ball like you're angry at physics, and physics wins anyway.
means A trick-shot billiards stroke where you strike the cue ball nearly straight down with an elevated cue, forcing it to curve sharply around obstructing balls instead of going in a straight line.
from From French masse, tied to the verb masser ('to strike with a mallet-like blow') — the same family that gave English 'mace' and 'mass' (as in a lump or club). The term rode straight out of 19th-century French billiard halls into English alongside the game's vocabulary, keeping its original spelling and that stubborn silent final 'e' as a little souvenir of its passport.
- the stroke
- cue nearly vertical, ball curves around obstacles
- origin
- french for mallet, borrowed from billiards' royal roots
- risk
- rips felt if you mishit the angle
- movie move
- the trick shot that makes amateurs gasp