snooker

plural snookers

1. countableuncountableA cue sport, popular in the UK and other Commonwealth of Nations countries.
2. countableuncountableball gamesThe situation where the cue ball is in such a position that the player cannot directly hit a legal ball with it.

   She put her opponent in a snooker.

present singular third person snookers · participle present snookering · participle past snookered · past snookered

1. intransitiveTo play the game of snooker.
2. transitiveTo fool or bamboozle.

   Los Angeles would still be a piddling little town in a desert if it weren’t for Sierra snowmelt and city officials crafty enough to snooker eastern California farmers out of their water rights.

   2023 August 6, Daniel Duane, “It’s August. Californians Are Still Skiing. Don’t Ask.”, in The New York Times

   2 more examples

   But to critics like the New York Times's Paul Krugman, Ryan was an obvious con man weaponizing the deficit to hamstring Obama's presidency, weaken the recovery, and snooker Beltway centrists eager to champion a reasonable-seeming Republican.

   2018, Ezra Klein, “Paul Ryan's Long Con”, in Vox.com

   Block lists the state's current crop of problems: The Washington Bridge. A dysfunctional DOT. RI's botched new $99 million payroll technology system. Woeful education test scores. Padded utility bills. And on down the list. In the technology area especially, "We have the wrong people sitting across the table from high-paid consultants whose job it is to basically snooker us. And I think we get snookered all the time by our technology vendors. So that's a small taste of the issues that are out there."

   2026 September 14, Katherine Gregg, “RI's primary victors must now face independent Ken Block for governor | Exclusive”, in The Providence Journal, retrieved 14 Sep 2026

3. ambitransitiveball gamesTo place the cue ball in such a position that (the opponent) cannot directly hit the required ball with it.
4. broadlytransitiveTo put (someone) in a difficult situation.

   Sam McDougall, Operations Director for NR's East Coast Route, explains: "Until recently, if anything went wrong in the two-track section between Stoke and Doncaster, we were snookered.

   2023 July 12, Ben Jones, “'Thunderbirds' are go on the ECML...”, in RAIL, number 987, page 34

5. transitiveTo cause to become inebriated.