A domino is a flat, thumbsized block of wood or other material, with one face bearing from one to six arranged dots or pips and the other blank or identically patterned. A complete set of dominoes consists of 28 such pieces. The word domino may also refer to any of the various games played with such pieces. The most common of these are positional games, in which each player moves a domino edge to edge against an adjacent domino until all are covered or uncovered.
Dominos have a very high center of gravity, and the slightest movement can tip them over. This is why they can make a loud and dramatic noise when they fall. The same principle applies to events in life, where one small event can have a big impact on other things. That’s what’s known as the domino effect.
When a man who works at Domino’s loses his job, he may be able to find another one in the same industry. That can have a positive domino effect, or a negative one, depending on the circumstances.
There are many ways to design a track for dominoes, including straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, and 3-D structures like towers and pyramids. A person who creates such a layout is often called a domino artist.
A line of dominoes is normally set up with the leading player placing a domino, or “spinner,” on the edge of the table next to a vacant spot. Each player then places his or her tiles on the line of play, either lengthwise or crosswise. If a double is played, the next tile must be placed to match its end, or, if it is not a double, across from the double touching at its middle.
After the initial placement, a player draws from the stock (See “Passing and Byeing” below) the number of dominoes permitted to him by the rules of the game in which he is playing. He then plays these, adding them to the ones in his hand. In some games, a player may be allowed to buy tiles from the stock as well.
In a positional game, the dominoes are then used to build chains that run along a line of play. These chains are sometimes joined together, as in the case of a double-six or a five-seven, to form larger numbers. Depending on the game, each chain is scored according to the number of pips at both ends of the leading domino or at all four ends of the remaining tiles. The number of pips on a domino is its rank, or weight. A higher rank has more pips, while a lower rank has fewer. The term domino was once also applied to a long, hooded cloak and mask worn together at masquerades by musicians such as Antoine Fats, 1928-2017, an African-American rhythm-and-blues pianist. That sense of the word, however, appears to be obsolete.