Bowldle · Guide
Bowling terms: turkey, hambone, split and more
Bowling has its own language, from turkeys to bedposts. Here are the terms you'll hear most at the alley, grouped so they're easy to find.
Scoring
- Frame: one turn. A game has ten.
- Strike (X): all ten pins down with the first ball.
- Spare (/): all ten pins down with two balls.
- Open frame: pins still standing after two balls.
- Mark: a strike or a spare.
- Clean game: a game with a mark in every frame, so no open frames.
- Perfect game: twelve strikes in a row, for a score of 300.
- Gutter ball: a ball that rolls into the channel at the side of the lane and knocks down nothing. Shown as a dash (-).
For how the points add up, see how bowling scoring works.
Strikes in a row
- Double: two strikes in a row.
- Turkey: three strikes in a row.
- Hambone, or four-bagger: four strikes in a row.
- Five-bagger, six-pack: five and six in a row. The count keeps going from there.
Pins and leaves
- Head pin: the 1 pin, at the front of the rack.
- Kingpin: the 5 pin, in the middle of the rack.
- Leave: the pins left standing after your first ball.
- Split: a leave where the head pin is down and the standing pins have a gap between them, such as the 4-6 or 7-10. Marked with a circle on the scoresheet.
- Bedposts or goalposts: the 7-10 split, the hardest leave in bowling.
- Baby split: the 2-7 or 3-10. They look like splits but are easy to convert.
- Big four: the 4-6-7-10 split.
- Washout: a leave that would be a split, except the head pin is still standing, like the 1-2-10.
- Sleeper: a pin hidden directly behind another, like the 8 behind the 2.
- Tap: a single pin left standing after what looked like a perfect hit.
- Ringing 10: a 10 pin left standing after a ball hits the pocket, the classic right-hander's tap.
The ball and the lane
- Pocket: the strike spot between the 1 and 3 pins for right-handers, or the 1 and 2 for left-handers.
- Brooklyn: a strike from a ball that crossed over and hit the opposite pocket.
- Hook: a ball that curves as it nears the pins. See how to throw a hook.
- Carry: how well a ball knocks down all the pins after hitting the pocket.
- Deflection: how much the ball gets pushed off line when it hits the pins.
- Arrows: the seven aiming marks about 15 feet down the lane.
- Approach: the area you walk on before the foul line.
- Foul line: the line at the start of the lane. Stepping over it while throwing is a foul and scores zero.
- Oil pattern: how oil is laid on the lane, which controls hook. See oil patterns explained.
- Pin deck: the area where the pins stand. Behind it is the pit, with the kickbacks (side walls) on each side.
- Deadwood: knocked-down pins left lying on the deck, cleared by the pinsetter before the next ball.
League talk
- Anchor: the last bowler on a team, usually its most reliable.
- Handicap: extra pins added to a lower average bowler's score to keep matches fair.
- Sandbagger: someone who bowls badly on purpose to raise their handicap.
Want to collect a turkey or a hambone yourself? Bowldle has badges for both, and a new lane every day.