CARDS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cards mean? 

• CARDS (noun)
  The noun CARDS has 1 sense:

1. a game played with playing cards

  Familiarity information: CARDS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CARDS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A game played with playing cards

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

card game; cards

Hypernyms ("cards" is a kind of...):

game (a contest with rules to determine a winner)

Meronyms (parts of "cards"):

discard ((cards) the act of throwing out a useless card or of failing to follow suit)

deal (the act of distributing playing cards)

lead (the playing of a card to start a trick in bridge)

renege; revoke (the mistake of not following suit when able to do so)

call (a demand for a show of hands in a card game)

cut; cutting (the division of a deck of cards before dealing)

double; doubling (raising the stakes in a card game by a factor of 2)

make; shuffle; shuffling (the act of mixing cards haphazardly)

Domain member category:

lurch; skunk (defeat by a lurch)

ante (place one's stake)

underplay (play a card lower than (a held high card))

check (decline to initiate betting)

pitch (lead (a card) and establish the trump suit)

cover (play a higher card than the one previously played)

raise (bet more than the previous player)

see (match or meet)

fourhanded ((of card games) involving or requiring four players)

reshuffle (shuffle again)

riffle (shuffle (playing cards) by separating the deck into two parts and riffling with the thumbs so the cards intermix)

deal (distribute cards to the players in a game)

deal (give (a specific card) to a player)

bid; call (make a demand, as for a card or a suit or a show of hands)

misdeal (deal cards wrongly)

exit (lose the lead)

crossruff (trump alternately in two hands)

overtrump (play a trump higher than (one previously played) to the trick)

ruff; trump (play a trump)

bluff; bluff out (deceive an opponent by a bold bet on an inferior hand with the result that the opponent withdraws a winning hand)

unblock (play the cards of (a suit) so that the last trick on which a hand can follow suit will be taken by a higher card in the hand of a partner who has the remaining cards of a combined holding)

revoke (fail to follow suit when able and required to do so)

book (a collection of playing cards satisfying the rules of a card game)

trump ((card games) the suit that has been declared to rank above all other suits for the duration of the hand)

shoe ((card games) a case from which playing cards are dealt one at a time)

trick ((card games) in a single round, the sequence of cards played by all the players; the high card is the winner)

ruff; trumping ((card games) the act of taking a trick with a trump when unable to follow suit)

deal (the act of distributing playing cards)

reshuffle; reshuffling (shuffling again)

discard ((cards) the act of throwing out a useless card or of failing to follow suit)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cards"):

four-card monte; monte; three-card monte (a gambling card game of Spanish origin; 3 or 4 cards are dealt face up and players bet that one of them will be matched before the others as the cards are dealt from the pack one at a time)

long whist; short whist; whist (a card game for four players who form two partnerships; a pack of 52 cards is dealt and each side scores one point for each trick it takes in excess of six)

patience; solitaire (a card game played by one person)

rum; rummy (a card game based on collecting sets and sequences; the winner is the first to meld all their cards)

rouge et noir; trente-et-quarante (a card game in which two rows of cards are dealt and players can bet on the color of the cards or on which row will have a count nearer some number)

poker; poker game (any of various card games in which players bet that they hold the highest-ranking hand)

pisha paysha ((Yiddish) a card game for two players one of whom is usually a child; the deck is place face down with one card face upward; players draw from the deck alternately hoping to build up or down from the open card; the player with the fewest cards when the deck is exhausted is the winner)

piquet (a card game for two players using a reduced pack of 32 cards)

bezique; penuchle; pinochle; pinocle (a card game played with a pack of forty-eight cards (two of each suit for high cards); play resembles whist)

old maid (a card game using a pack of cards from which one queen has been removed; players match cards and the player holding the unmatched queen at the end of the game is the loser (or 'old maid'))

nap; Napoleon (a card game similar to whist; usually played for stakes)

boodle; Chicago; Michigan; Newmarket; stops (a gambling card game in which chips are placed on the ace and king and queen and jack of separate suits (taken from a separate deck); a player plays the lowest card of a suit in his hand and successively higher cards are played until the sequence stops; the player who plays a card matching one in the layout wins all the chips on that card)

all fours; high-low-jack (card games in which points are won for taking the high or low or jack or game)

Go Fish (a card game for two players who try to assemble books of cards by asking the opponent for particular cards)

faro (a card game in which players bet against the dealer on the cards he will draw from a dealing box)

fantan; parliament; sevens (a card game in which you play your sevens and other cards in sequence in the same suit as the sevens; you win if you are the first to use all your cards)

euchre; five hundred (a card game similar to ecarte; each player is dealt 5 cards and the player making trump must take 3 tricks to win a hand)

ecarte (a card game for 2 players; played with 32 cards and king high)

crib; cribbage (a card game (usually for two players) in which each player is dealt six cards and discards one or two)

casino; cassino (a card game in which cards face up on the table are taken with eligible cards in the hand)

bridge (any of various card games based on whist for four players)

blackjack; twenty-one; vingt-et-un (a gambling game using cards; the object is to hold cards having a higher count than those dealt to the banker up to but not exceeding 21)

beggar-my-neighbor; beggar-my-neighbour; strip-Jack-naked (a card game for two players in which the object is to win all of the other player's cards)

baccarat; chemin de fer (a card game played in casinos in which two or more punters gamble against the banker; the player wins who holds 2 or 3 cards that total closest to nine)

 Context examples 

I was so surprised, for I shouldn't have known them but for the cards.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Uranus is currently in your house of credit cards, loans, and other sources of money.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

One way to learn about the quality of a facility is to look at report cards developed by federal, state, and consumer groups.

(Health Facilities, NIH)

A circuit board with connectors into which other cards are plugged.

(Backplane Device Component, NCI Thesaurus)

Yes, yes; I see the fall of the cards.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You did not use to like cards; but time makes many changes.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The good Doctor said she was nervous, and, to relieve her, proposed a round game at cards; of which he knew as much as of the art of playing the trombone.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The research, led by a team at the University of Cambridge, suggests that our cards may be marked even before we are born.

(Heart disease risk begins in the womb, University of Cambridge)

We played cards for her on the voyage. He won.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)