From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbilliardsbil‧liards /ˈbɪljədz $ -ərdz/ noun [uncountable] DGSa game played on a cloth-covered table in which balls are hit with a cue (=a long stick) against each other and into pockets at the edge of the table → pool, snookerGRAMMAR: Singular or plural verb?Billiards is followed by a singular verb: Billiards is played with two cue balls. —billiard adjective [only before noun] a billiard table
Examples from the Corpus
billiards• Trueman's show was an homage to pub sports-bar billiards, darts, skittles and shove ha'penny.• As in billiards, a direct collision results in backward scattering and an off-centre collision results in forward scattering.• A naturally gifted sportswoman, she became a proficient sculler, horsewoman, and mountaineer, and even mastered billiards.• We had a game of billiards and then went to a restaurant.• Reginald and Henry were having a game of billiards.• Me and Frank had been playing billiards at the Liberal club, a big chapel-like building on Kenworthy Road.• He died at the age of eighty-one while playing billiards in the United Services Club.• It hangs, he assures me, in the billiards room of White's.Origin billiards (1500-1600) French billard “(stick used in) billiards”, from bille “piece of wood, stick” 