Dominoes Slang, Explained: 40 Terms You'll Hear at the Table

Dominoes has its own language, and most of it was never written down. It got passed from the grown folks' table to whoever was old enough to sit there, one hand at a time. That's part of why the game feels the way it does, and it's also why the first time you sit down it can sound like everybody's speaking in code.

This is the code. We've grouped it by moment: the setup, the count, the big plays, the middle of a hand, the end of a hand, and the talk around all of it. Where a term means something different at different tables, we say so. If you're brand new, read How to Play Fives Dominoes first and keep this open next to it.

The bones and the table

Bones

The dominoes. The first European sets were carved from animal bone and ivory, and the word outlived the material by a couple of centuries. At the table it's the only word. "Bring the bones." Nobody says tiles.

Wash / shuffle

Turning every bone face down and mixing them with both hands before the pull. The wash is loud on a wooden table and that's fine. Some tables say the loser washes.

The pull / the deal

Taking your hand from the wash. Seven each in a two-player game, nine at some tables.

Boneyard

The face-down bones nobody pulled. When you can't play, you draw from it until you can. Fourteen deep after a seven-bone deal.

Big six

The double-six, heaviest bone in the set. If anybody was dealt it, it opens the first hand. Also the bone everybody hates being stuck with when someone else dominoes.

Blank

The empty half, worth zero. The 0-0 is the double blank. It counts nothing on an end, which makes it a quiet way to change a board without changing the count.

Double

A bone with the same number on both halves. There are seven. Doubles go down crossways and count both halves when they sit on an open end. That's the rule that makes big scores possible.

Spinner

The first double played in a hand. It's the one bone you can build off in all four directions, and its top and bottom open only after both long sides are played. Full treatment in The Spinner in Dominoes.

Open end

Any end of the layout you're allowed to play on. The open ends are what get counted after every play. Two of them until the spinner's sides fill; up to four after.

Suit

All seven bones that carry a given number. The sixes are a suit; so are the blanks. There are exactly seven of everything, which is the whole basis of counting bones.

Heavy hand / light hand

A hand holding lots of pips, or few. Heavy hands hurt when the other side goes out. Light hands win blocked games.

The count

The count / "count it"

Adding up the pips on the open ends after a play. If the total's a multiple of 5, it's yours. "Count it" is both an instruction and a boast. How the math works: Dominoes Scoring: Counting the Open Ends.

Money

Points. "Put some money on the board." "He's got money on the table." Dominoes has always been played for something, even when the something is bragging rights.

Nick / nickel

Five points. The smallest score in the game and, at a table that scores in exact fives, the one you'll hear most.

Dime

Ten points. Opening with the 5-5 or the 6-4 is a dime before anybody else has touched a bone.

Trees / triplets

Fifteen points. Three fives. At our table you might also hear a whole line of a Lionel Richie song; the app sings it too.

Twenty / big money

Twenty points. Usually needs a double on an end doing a lot of work. The table gets loud.

Quarter

Twenty-five. The count has to be nearly perfect: something like a 6-6 on one end (12), a 5-5 on another (10), and a 3 somewhere. Respect.

Thirty

Thirty points on one play. You'll remember where you were.

Earthquake

Thirty-five or more on a single play. It requires three or four open ends stacked with doubles, and it happens about as often as the name suggests. In Cookout Dominoes the table physically shakes.

Playing the hand

Set / set-up

Arranging the open ends so that your next play scores. Good players set; great players set without you noticing.

Give / "you gave him that"

Leaving a scoring play open for your opponent. If you play a bone that leaves the ends at 4 and 6, you just gave anybody holding a 4-5 or a 6-... well, you gave them something. Defense in Fives is mostly not giving.

Cut / kill

Changing an end so the number your opponent is waiting on isn't there anymore. If they've been playing sixes all hand, cutting the six is how you make them draw.

Hold

Deliberately keeping a bone back. Holding the last six when you know the other side needs it is how blocked games get made.

All money ain't good money

The saying that separates the counters from the point-chasers. A nick that sets your opponent up for a dime was a bad nick. Take the points, but look at what you're leaving.

Knock / pass

Announcing you have no play. At many tables you knock the bone or your knuckles on the wood so nobody has to ask. You can only pass when the boneyard is empty.

Draw / fish / "go to the yard"

Pulling from the boneyard because nothing in your hand plays. You keep pulling until something does.

Blocked / locked / jammed

The boneyard's empty and neither player can move. Both hands get counted; the lighter hand scores the difference, rounded to 5. Who wins and why: Blocked Dominoes.

Ending the hand

Domino!

What you say when you play your last bone. The hand's over, you won it, and the other side's leftover pips are yours, rounded to the nearest 5. Say it like you mean it.

Go out

Same thing, quieter. "I went out on him with a dime."

Hand

One deal, played until somebody dominoes or the board locks. A game is a run of hands until somebody hits the number.

The number / game

The score that ends it. 150 at most Black American tables and in the app; 200 or 250 in older books and some regions. Settle it before the wash: 150 or 200?

Skunk / shutout

Winning while the other side is still at zero, or close to it. Definitions vary by table. The app has a special something for it.

House

The 50-point figure on a paper score sheet. Each line is worth 5; when the figure is complete it means 50. Three houses is 150. If you've watched somebody score a game on a napkin and wondered what they were drawing, that's it. Step by step: How to Keep Score in Dominoes.

The pen / "who got the pen?"

The scorekeeper, and the job. Whoever holds the pen holds the truth, so it's usually somebody trusted, or somebody who lost. Cookout Dominoes ships a scorekeeper called Take-Pen for exactly this.

The table talk

Slam / slap

Putting a bone down with force. Reserved for plays that earn it: a big score, a domino, a set finally paying off. Slamming a nick is a rookie tell.

Talking bones / trash talk

The commentary. It's not optional and it's not personal. It's the call-and-response half of the game, and a quiet table is a suspicious table.

Run the table

Winning hand after hand, game after game, without giving up the seat.

Hold the table

Winner stays, loser gets up, next challenger sits. It's how a cookout organizes twenty people around one set of bones, and it's the name of the weekly gauntlet in the app.

"I got next"

Claiming the next seat. Say it early and say it clearly.

Grown folks' table

Where the real game is. You don't ask to sit there. You get told.

Fives / All Fives / Muggins / Sniff / Five-Up

Names for the scoring family of dominoes. Fives and All Fives are the same game. Muggins is the older name and has no spinner in the strict version. Sniff and Five-Up are cousins with their own spinner rules. If somebody says they play "straight dominoes" or "block," they mean no count at all: only the domino and the block score.