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Cornhole Terminology

The following is a list of terms commonly used in cornhole:

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  • Airmail: a bag that does not slide or bounce on the board but goes directly into the hole, usually over an opponent's blocker bag.

  • Back door, jumper, dirty rollup: a bag that goes over the top of a blocker and into the hole.

  • Backstop: a bag that lands past the hole but remains on the board creating a backboard for a slider to knock into without going off the board.

  • Blocker: a bag that lands in front of the hole, blocking the hole from an opponent's slide shot.

  • Busting: an unofficial rule that sends a player's score back down to a predetermined number if their score at the end of an inning exceeds 21.

  • Cornfusion: when players or teams cannot agree on the scoring of an inning.

  • Cornhole or Drano: a bag that falls in the hole and is worth three points; the alternative name is a reference to a trademark, that of a clog-clearing product.

  • Cornholio: same as "cornhole," depending on the region; named for the alter-ego of the character Beavis from the MTV animated series Beavis and Butt-Head.

  • Dirt bag: a bag that is on the ground or is hanging off the board and touching the ground.

  • Frame: an inning, a single round during which a player or team and their opponent(s) all throw their bags

  • Four bagger, Grand Bag: a sequence wherein a player makes all four bags in the hole during an inning; more specifically, all bags have to go into the hole one bag after another by the player in a single inning, i.e. the bags cannot later be knocked from the board's surface into the hole during the inning, either by the player or their opponent; there is a tradition in some areas where any social player who puts all four bags in the hole in a single inning gets to sign the board, often with some type of ceremony and recognition.

  • Flop bag, floppy bag: type of toss that does not spin the bag horizontally or vertically, a bag without rotation or spin.

  • Hammer: when one or more hangers (see below) are around the hole, a hammer can be used; a hammer is a bag thrown as an airmail bag with a high arc in an attempt to move hanger bags into the hole along with it.

  • Hanger: a bag on the lip of the hole close to falling in.

  • Honors: the player or team who tosses first, resulting from the team scoring in the previous inning or winning the coin toss before the first inning.

  • Hooker: a bag that hits the board and while hooking or curving around a blocker goes into the hole.

  • Jumper: a bag that strikes another bag on the board causing it to jump up and into the hole.

  • Push, wash: when each player or team obtains an identical score in an inning resulting in no overall score change

  • Short bag: when a bag lands on the ground just before the board.

  • Skunk, whitewash, shutout: a game that ends in a score of 21 (or more) to zero; by some unofficial rules a game may be called once a shutout score of at least 11-0 is reached.

  • Slide, slider: a bag that lands in front of the hole and slides in.

  • Swish: a bag that goes directly in the hole without touching the board (see also: "airmail").

  • Woody: any bag that has been pitched and remains on the board's surface at the end of the inning (scoring one point).

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