Baize is a coarse woollen (or in cheaper variants cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

) cloth, sometimes called felt

Felt

Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing woollen fibres. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can be of any colour, and made into any shape or size....

 in American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 based on a similarity in appearance.

Usage

Baize is most often used on snooker and billiards tables to cover the and , and is often used on other kinds of gaming tables such as those for blackjack

Blackjack

Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...

, baccarat

Baccarat

Baccarat is a card game, played at casinos and by gamblers. It is believed to have been introduced into France from Italy during the reign of King Charles VIII , and it is similar to Faro and Basset...

, craps

Craps

Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...

 and other casino

Casino

In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

 games.

The surface finish of baize is not very fine (and thus increases friction, perceptibly slowing the balls

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...

 down, from a player's perspective). Baize is available with and without a perceptible nap

Nap (textile)

Primarily, nap is the raised surface on certain kinds of cloth, such as velvet. Nap can refer additionally to other surfaces that look like the surface of a napped cloth, such as the surface of a felt or beaver hat....

. Snooker

Snooker

Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...

, in which understanding of the effects of the nap is part of the game, uses the nappy variety, while pool (pocket billiards) and carom billiards use the napless type. Table baize is available in many grades, with pool hall

Pool hall

A billiard/billiards, pool or snooker hall is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards...

s preferring smooth, "fast" worsted

Worsted

Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...

 woollen baize, while rather more fuzzy, "slow" cloth is commonly used for .

For gaming use, baize is traditionally dye

Dye

A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....

d green, in mimicry of a lawn (see Cue sport, "History"), thus the common phrase "the green baize", a synecdochal

Synecdoche

Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...

 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).

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; thus the phrase's usage as a general metonymy, for domestic service.

Introduction in England

A mid-17th century English ditty (a short, simple popular song)—much quoted in histories of ale and beer brewing in England—refers to 1525 as the year:

Hops, heresies, bays, and beer;

Came into England all in one year.

Heresies refers to the Protestant Reformation

Reformation

- Movements :* Protestant Reformation, an attempt by Martin Luther to reform the Roman Catholic Church that resulted in a schism, and grew into a wider movement...

, while bays is the Elizabethan spelling for baize.

See also

• Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
  Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire
  Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire is a 1985 British musical film starring Phil Daniels and Alun Armstrong. The film was directed by Alan Clarke and written by Trevor Preston.-Plot:...