Canasta

Origin

From Spanish canasta. The game originates from Uruguay.

Full definition of canasta

Noun

1. (uncountable, games, card games) A card game similar to rummy and played using two packs, where the object is to meld groups of the same rank.
• 1951 July, Henry F. Tenney, Per Stirpes and Not Per Capita: Or, What Your Clients Can Never Tell You, ABA Journal, page 492,“Do you know something, Fred?” she announced, “I won four dollars and eighty-five cents playing Canasta this afternoon.”“Canasta!” exclaimed Mr. Grimes, “I didn′t know you could play that silly game.”
• 2004, Gregory Bateson, 15: A Theory of Play and Fantasy, Henry Bial (editor), The Performance Studies Reader, page 130,Imagine, first, two players who engage in a game of canasta according to a standard set of rules....We may imagine, however, that at a certain moment the two canasta players cease to play canasta and start a discussion of the rules.
• 2011, Barry Rigal, Card Games For Dummies, unnumbered page,Modern American Canasta is a younger cousin of the game of Canasta I explain here.
2. (countable, card games) A meld of seven cards in a game of canasta.
• 1949 December 19, The Canasta Craze, Life, page 47,Groups of seven of a kind are called canastas, and before a player can go out he or his partner must have at least one canasta.