"Baize" vs. "Cloth": What is the difference?

JAM

JAM

I am the storm
Silver Member
The word "baize" came up as Word for the Day on my industry forum. What is the difference between "cloth" and "baize," or are they the same?

I did a Google search, and it seems as if they are the same, but yet they say "baize" is used on snooker and game tables.

Would be interested to learn more. TIA. :)
 
Hi JAM,

I've also heard the cloth on a card table referred to as baize. I think the first time I saw it was in the novel, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming; James Bond was playing Baccarat with Le Chiffre at the time.

According my quick research, it's from a French word baies, a feminine plural referring to a chestnut color which is far from green!

The definition I found was: a coarse, feltlike, woolen material that is typically green, used for covering billiard and card tables and for aprons.

Thanks for making me think this morning! Best to you and yours!

Brian in VA
 
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I always understood it to be a term that at some point had come to be synonymous with billiard felt of all varieties. Not necessarily a slang term, but something close.

It may have been used in past centuries as an alternate term for "cloth" in order to retain the upper class image of the game before the lower/middle class took it over in Europe.

I have never seen it used outside of the pool community, or, if it was, it was referring to cloth that had the same basic attributes of billiard cloth.

At it's core, I have always seen it as a "slangish" term for billiard cloth, much as we refer to football being played on the "gridiron"..

Short Bus Russ - Never beat anybody, C Player
 
My understanding....what is on a table is 'cloth'....it's woven.
'felt' is not woven, it is pressed or crushed together.....
....I think 'baize' is more of the 'felt' category.

Will check later

edit....seems baize would be the cloth that snooker players play on.
....and maybe the old Mali 821....if it is napped, it resembles felt, but it's cloth.
 
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I love this forum and the various posts every day. Every day there seems to be something that makes me think or learn more about billiards than I knew previously. This post did it to me again. Thanks JAM. Keep up the great posts.
 
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Baize is literally an ancient word for green or tan fuzzy cloth.
I've seen references to it going back to at least 1582 although I'm sure it dates back even further...

Baize is generally considered to be a cloth with a plain weave, open texture, worsted warp, and woolen filling, teased on one side with a more or less long nap.
( the "warp" are the horizontal threads and the "fill" are the vertical threads...unless I have mixed up my weaving terms and got them backwards lol)

It was commonly used for clothing (coat linings, stockings, aprons etc) and for furniture, floors, doors, and of course tables and gaming tables as well. Almost any green fabric or any fabric for tables and doors was " baize " to an upholsterer and what was called " table baize" in the furnishing trade was a cotton cloth treated with a linseed oil mixture.

In 1742 it was defined as: " a woolen stuff, not croise', very loose with the hair on one side, a kind of flannel very coarse"

Later in time, due to its almost exclusive use on gaming and billiard tables, it became synonymous with gambling and pool rooms, inspiring Dickens to coin the phrase " men of the green baize" which was actually a polite name for hustlers.
 
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From Old French baies, plural of baie baize, from bai reddish brown, perhaps the original colour of the fabric

The origin of billiards is up for debate, but the the French get a point for contributing at least one term that has survived for more than five centuries. :D
 
Ken_4fun said:
I thought baize was the cloth on gaming tables, not billiard tables.

Ken
Click to expand...

It was/is definitely the cloth on gaming tables as well. But where many Americans adopted the term "felt" , the you're-a-peein's kept using the old world term " baize" in reference to cloth on billiard tables.

Before the advent of ultra worsted cloth (napless), the fuzzy baize was indeed standard on all tables. * shudder*
 
Mr. Bond said:
It was/is definitely the cloth on gaming tables as well. But where many Americans adopted the term "felt" , the you're-a-peein's kept using the old world term " baize" in reference to cloth on billiard tables.

Before the advent of ultra worsted cloth (napless), the fuzzy baize was indeed standard on all tables. * shudder*
Click to expand...

I am finding this fascinating. Does this mean, Mr. Bond, that the baize cloth is the so-called "slow cloth" that was used on GCs before Simonis' fast cloth came to the fore?
 
Scaramouche said:
From Old French baies, plural of baie baize, from bai reddish brown, perhaps the original colour of the fabric

The origin of billiards is up for debate, but the the French get a point for contributing at least one term that has survived for more than five centuries. :D
Click to expand...

Oh yes, the damn french get lotsa points in the pool world.
From words and phrases, to cue designs and tips, to chalk and even types of strokes, we absorbed and adopted much of their early knowledge of the game.

Damned french fries.
 
JAM said:
I am finding this fascinating. Does this mean, Mr. Bond, that the baize cloth is the so-called "slow cloth" that was used on GCs before Simonis' fast cloth came to the fore?
Click to expand...

Basically yes. But it wasn't a direct conversion from one to the other...first came the baize, then came the use of tighter/stronger weaves (twill, as opposed to open weaves), then came the 'directional' cloth ( GC era) and finally the fine worsted and shaved variety that we use today.
 
JAM said:
I am finding this fascinating. Does this mean, Mr. Bond, that the baize cloth is the so-called "slow cloth" that was used on GCs before Simonis' fast cloth came to the fore?
Click to expand...

I'm not Bond, but both baize and felt were once used to refer to the cloth on a billiard
table.

FWIW - not all CGs had slow cloth - Stevens 100% wool was faster than 860.

Dale(non-Bond)
 
Mr. Bond said:
Basically yes. But it wasn't a direct conversion from one to the other...first came the baize, then came the use of tighter/stronger weaves (twill, as opposed to open weaves), then came the 'directional' cloth ( GC era) and finally the fine worsted and shaved variety that we use today.
Click to expand...

So, may I ask what the approximate timeline was for all these changes?
 
A little off-topic, but I always get excited when the announcer starts off a snooker match with the old "Let's get boys on the baize!" line.
 
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victorl said:
A little off-topic, but I always get excited when the announcer starts off a snooker match with the old "Let's get boys on the baize!" line.
Click to expand...

I love that little snooker factoid. Thanks for sharing! :cool:
 
Mr. Bond said:
Industrial revolution...
Turn of the 20th century...
1960-70..

-ish
Click to expand...

Something worthy of note:
In the U.S. in the mid 1800s, the predominant game was 4ball, and then balkline, ...but then pocket billiards gained strength, as did 3cushion, and that is when the table fabrics seem to have hit a fork in the road.

Prior to the rise of pocket billiards, all the table fabrics were generally the same, either woolen or cotton or a blend of the two. But by the turn of the last century there was a heavy push for either worsted (napless), or, directional cloth, depending on the game you were playing.

That division is all but gone now with most all billiard games being played on fine napless cloth. (And of course the less expensive woolen variety)
 
Mr. Bond said:
Something worthy of note:
In the U.S. in the mid 1800s, the predominant game was 4ball, and then balkline, ...but then pocket billiards gained strength, as did 3cushion, and that is when the table fabrics seem to have hit a fork in the road.

Prior to the rise of pocket billiards, all the table fabrics were generally the same, either woolen or cotton or a blend of the two. But by the turn of the last century there was a heavy push for either worsted (napless), or, directional cloth, depending on the game you were playing.

That division is all but gone now with most all billiard games being played on fine napless cloth. (And of course the less expensive woolen variety)
Click to expand...

Very interesting.

I wonder what was the slow-as-hell cloth from the 60s and 70s was. You know, the stuff that everybody seems to have to grown up on and says you needed a huge stroke to move the CB around. I grew up on bar tables, and I know that stuff was slow as molasses, but hadn't the fine worsted blends been well established as the cloth of choice on the 9' tournament tables by then? When did Simonis hit the scene with 760?
 
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