The words of darts, explained — a glossary

What a leg, a set, a bust, a checkout, a bogey number and the madhouse are — the words this app uses, each in plain words.

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Darts has a vocabulary of its own, and most of it is older than anybody playing. These are the words this app and these pages use, each said in plain words and without assuming you already know the others.

Leg: One game of 301 or 501, from the starting score down to exactly nothing. A match is played over legs, or over sets of them.
Set: A group of legs. In a match of sets, a set is won by winning so many legs, and the match by winning so many sets.
The throw: Throwing first in a leg. It passes to the other player every leg, and it is an advantage: the player who opens is a turn ahead.
Break of throw: Winning a leg that the other player opened.
Bull-off: One dart each at the bull before a match. Whoever lands closest throws first.
Oche: The line you throw from: 2.37 m from the face of the board, measured along the floor.
Single: The wide beds of a number, inside and outside the treble ring. A single 20 is 20.
Double: The thin outer ring: twice the number. A leg ends on one.
Treble: The thin inner ring: three times the number. The treble 20, at 60, is the most one dart can score.
Outer bull: The green ring round the centre, worth 25.
Bull: The red centre, worth 50. It counts as a double, so it can finish a leg.
Double out: The rule that a leg ends on a double or the bull. Played almost everywhere, and on unless you turn it off.
Double in: The rule that nothing counts until you hit a double. Rarer, and off unless you turn it on.
Bust: Scoring more than you need, leaving exactly 1, or reaching nothing without a double. The turn ends at once, and the score goes back to where it was before it.
Checkout: The darts that finish a leg, and the score they take out: a 100 checkout is 100 finished in one turn, on a double.
Setup shot: A dart thrown to leave a finish rather than to score: a single 19 from 59 leaves 40, which is double 20.
Bogey number: A score under 170 that no three darts can finish: 169, 168, 166, 165, 163, 162 and 159.
Madhouse: Double 1: the last finish there is. A dart in the single 1 leaves nothing to aim at.
Ton: A turn of 100 or more. A ton-forty is 140 or more.
Maximum: 180: three darts in the treble 20, the most one turn can score.
Nine-darter: A leg of 501 won with nine darts, the fewest it can take.
Three-dart average: Everything you scored, divided by the darts it took, times three. The usual measure of how well somebody plays.
First-nine average: The three-dart average over the first nine darts of each leg: how somebody scores before the finishing starts.
Around the World: A practice game: hit every number from 1 to 20 in order, then the bull.
Bob's 27: A doubles drill. Start on 27 and take three darts at each double from 1 to 20, then the bull: every hit adds the double, and three misses take it away. Drop below 1 and the run is over.