Английский Этимологический словарь - pool (2)

- "game similar to billiards," originally (1693) a card game played for collective stakes (a "pool"), from Fr. poule "stakes, booty, plunder," lit. "hen," from O.Fr. poule "hen, young fowl." Perhaps the original notion is from jeu de la poule, supposedly a game in which people threw things at a hen and the player who hit it, won it, which speaks volumes about life in the Middle Ages. The connection of "hen" and "stakes" is also present in Sp. polla and Walloon paie. Meaning "things owned in common" first recorded 1869. The verb is 1872, from the noun.