What, exactly, is "THE CUE?"

[Shaft]

My son asked me this question, and I had to admit I did not know:
Is the cue stick the "cue stick" because it hits the CUE (ball), or is the cue ball the "cue ball" because it is hit by the CUE (stick)? Anybody know this bit of pool history?

(I did not bother searching on "cue" in the archives. In this forum, 60-80% of the posts must have the word "cue" in them. So, I apologize if this has been covered before.)

[bsmutz]

It's the stick. It comes from the French and literally meant tail or a single braid of hair hanging from the back of the head.

[Cornerman]

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Shaft:</font><hr> My son asked me this question, and I had to admit I did not know:
Is the cue stick the "cue stick" because it hits the CUE (ball), or is the cue ball the "cue ball" because it is hit by the CUE (stick)? Anybody know this bit of pool history? <hr /></blockquote>The word comes from the French word, "queue," which means tail.

When billiards started, they used a mace, a club of sorts that was carried over from the lawn games that developed into croquet and ultimately golf.

When billiardists needed to stretch to reach shots, someone got the brilliant idea to hit the white ball with the tail end, rather than the club end. That is to say, they were queueing (cueing) the white ball.

Fred