Baize is a coarse

woollen Woolen (American English) or woollen (Commonwealth English) is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn. Woolen yarn is in contrast t ...

(or in cheaper variants

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

)

cloth Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is n ...

, similar in texture to

felt Felt is a textile that is produced by matting, condensing, and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic fiber, acrylic or acrylonitrile or ...

, but more durable.

History

A mid-17th-century English ditty – much quoted in histories of ale and beer brewing in England – refers to 1525:
''Heresies'' refers to the Protestant

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

, while ''bays'' is the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

spelling for ''baize'' (though ''bay'' and ''baize'' eventually came to describe two similar but distinguishable types of cloth, as described below).

Applications

Baize is often used on

billiard tables Billiard or billiards may refer to: Cue sports * A , a type of shot in cue sports ''(see below)'' * Billiards: cue sports in general; the term "billiards" by itself is also sometimes used to refer to any of the following more specifically: ** Ca ...

to cover the and , and is also used on different kinds of gaming tables (usually gambling) such as those for

blackjack Blackjack (formerly black jack or ''vingt-un'') is a casino banking game. It is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. It uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as " twenty-one ...

baccarat Baccarat or baccara (; ) is a card game. It is now mainly played at casinos, but formerly popular at house-parties and private gaming rooms. The game's origins are a mixture of precursors from China, Japan, and Korea, which then gained popularit ...

craps Craps is a dice game in which players gambling, bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, " ...

and other

casino A casino is a facility for gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shops, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos also host live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, conce ...

games. It is also found as a writing surface, particularly on 19th century pedestal desks. The surface finish of baize is coarse, thus increasing rolling resistance and perceptibly slowing

billiard ball A billiard ball is a small, hard ball used in cue sports, such as carom billiards, pool, and snooker. The number, type, diameter, color, and pattern of the balls differ depending upon the specific game being played. Various particular ball pro ...

s. Baize is available with and without a perceptible

nap A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to Somnolence, drowsiness during waking hours or as a means to supplement before ...

Snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

, in which understanding nap effects is part of the game, uses the nappy variety, while

pool Pool may refer to: Bodies of water * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a roc ...

and

carom billiards Carom billiards, also called French billiards and sometimes carambole billiards, is the overarching title of a family of cue sports generally played on cloth-covered, billiard tables. In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score ...

use the napless type. For gaming use, baize is traditionally

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

d green, in mimicry of a lawn ''(see Cue sport, "History")'', though wide variety of table colours have become accepted.

Bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

was similar material to baize, but lighter in weight and with a shorter nap.

Idioms and catchphrases

* "Let's get the boys on the baize!" has been a

catchphrase A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios ...

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

presenter Rob Walker since 2008. * At one time, "the green baize door" (a door to which cloth had been tacked to deaden noise) in a house separated the servants' quarters from the family's living quarters; Also republished as ''The Fallen Idol''. hence the phrase's usage as a

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...

for

domestic service A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly ...

. Moving men in the children's book ''

The Railway Children ''The Railway Children'' is a children's book by E. Nesbit, Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in ''The London Magazine'' during 1905 and published in book form in the same year. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the ...

'' wore green baize aprons.

References

External links

* {{Fabric Cue sports equipment Pile fabrics Snooker equipment Woven fabrics Waulked textiles ja:ラシャ

History

Applications

Idioms and catchphrases

See also

References

External links