Etymology

Probably corrupted from French carumboler to carom, carambolage a carom, carambole the red ball in billiards.

Noun

1. (Billiards) A shot in which the ball struck with the cue comes in contact with two or more balls on the table; a hitting of two or more balls with the player's ball; in England it is called cannon.

Verb

1. (intransitive) To make a carom.

to proceed in a regular and oscillatory manner, usually at low frequency, as in the path of the sun around the galactic centre (which takes 250 million years) with a bobbing motion across the galactic plane of frequency 60 million years, ie about four times every circuit. (See: Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, "Comet", p 298, First Pocket Books, Simon and Schuster 1986).