[pin-bawl] 
| any of various games played on a sloping, glass-topped table presenting a field of colorful, knoblike target pins and rails, the object usually being to shoot a ball, driven by a spring, up a side passage and cause it to roll back down against these projections and through channels, which electrically flash or ring and record the score. |
| pin·ball (pĭn'bôl') n. A game played on a device in which the player operates a plunger to shoot a ball down or along a slanted surface having obstacles and targets, often equipped with flippers to keep the ball in play. |
pinball
earliest of the coin-activated popular electromechanical games, usually found in candy stores, pool halls, drinking establishments, and amusement arcades, some of which, at the height of the game's popularity, were exclusively devoted to pinball. Pinball originated in its modern form in about 1930. Earlier machines had been purely mechanical. The earliest machines with coin slots used marbles and cost a penny to play. Steel balls replaced the marbles, and the single-coin price to play rose with inflation
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