Darts glossary: 40 terms to talk like a seasoned player

October 27, 2026

Darts grew up in English pubs, and so did its vocabulary. Some of it is plain rulebook language, some of it is slang that only makes sense once someone explains it over a pint. Here are the terms you'll hear around a board, from the official to the downright cheeky.

The board

Bed: the area of a segment between the wires, where the dart lands. You'll hear "the treble 20 bed".
Bull: the centre of the board. The outer bull (the green ring) is worth 25, the inner bull is worth 50.
Bullseye, double bull: the inner bull, worth 50. It counts as a double when you're finishing a leg in double out.
Double: the thin outer ring, which scores twice the segment. Outside it, the dart scores nothing.
Treble: the thin inner ring, which scores three times the segment. Treble 20 (60 points) is the most aimed-at bed in the game.
Wire, spider: the metal web that separates the segments and rings. A dart that hits a wire has a fair chance of bouncing out.
Bristle board: a steel-tip board made of compressed sisal fibres, which close back up after each dart.

For the full tour of the board, see our article on dartboard anatomy.

The darts

Barrel: the body of the dart, the part you grip.
Point: the end that goes into the board. Steel-tip or soft-tip depending on the board.
Shaft, stem: the piece that joins the barrel to the flight.
Flight: the fins at the back that keep the dart stable in the air.
Arrows: slang for darts. "Nice arrows" means good throwing.

Playing and scoring

Oche: the line you throw from, 2.37 m from the board. Pronounced "ocky".
Visit: one player's turn, 3 darts.
Leg: a single game, from the starting score (501, say) down to zero.
Set: a group of legs. In the big tournaments you win legs to take a set, and sets to take the match.
Bull-off: each player throws one dart at the bull, and the closest goes first.
Bust: a visit that takes you below zero, leaves you on 1 or finishes without a double. It's wiped out.
Checkout, finish, out-shot: the combination that takes you to exactly zero. The biggest possible in double out is 170. It's all in our checkout chart.
Leave: the score you leave yourself after a visit. "A good leave" is 32 or 40: an even double.
Double in, double out, master out: the x01 starting and finishing rules, covered in our article on the x01 variants.
Game shot: the referee's call when a player wins the leg.
Chalker: the person keeping score, traditionally in chalk on a blackboard.
Average: points per visit of 3 darts. The maths is in our article on darts averages.
MPR (marks per round): in Cricket, the average number of marks per visit.
Bounce out: a dart that comes back out of the board. It doesn't score.
Nine-darter: a leg of 501 finished in 9 darts, the fewest possible. The holy grail.
Whitewash: winning a match without dropping a single leg (or set).
Mugs away: the pub custom where the loser of the last leg throws first in the next one.

Scores with a name

Ton: a visit of 100 or more. "Ton 40" means 140.
Ton 80, maximum: 180, three treble 20s, the best visit possible.
Double top: double 20 (40 points), right at the top of the board. Plenty of players' favourite finishing double.
Madhouse: double 1. When you're left on 2, you're "in the madhouse", and you can be stuck there a while.
Bag o' nuts: a score of 45.
Bed and breakfast: a score of 26 (single 20, single 5, single 1), the classic result of a visit that sprays either side of the 20.
Three in a bed: all three darts of a visit in the same bed.
Shanghai: a single, a double and a treble of the same number in one visit. It's also a game where, in its classic version, a Shanghai wins it outright: see the Shanghai rules.
Robin Hood: a dart that sticks into the back of a dart already in the board. Rare, spectacular, and often the end of a shaft or a flight.
Bogey number: a score you can't check out in one visit in double out. Under 170 there are seven of them: 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162 and 159.
Double trouble: what you're in when you just can't hit your finishing double.

With Throw

Throw has a referee voice that calls the scores in English, just like on TV, so you'll soon have the lingo down. Stand your phone beside the board and it scores your darts on its own, whether you're playing x01, Cricket, Halve It or Shanghai.