Card

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /kɑːd/, kʰɑːd
• US IPA: /kɑɹd/, kʰɑɹd
• Australia IPA: /kaːd/, kʰäːd
• New Zealand IPA: /kɐːd/, kʰɐːd
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)d

From Middle English carde ("playing card"), from Old French carte, from Latin charta, from Ancient Greek χάρτης (chartēs, "paper, papyrus").

Full definition of card

Noun

1. A playing card.
2. (in the plural) Any game using playing cards; a card game.He played cards with his friends.
3. A resource or an argument, used to achieve a purpose.The government played the Orange card to get support for their Ireland policy.He accused them of playing the race card.
4. Any flat, normally rectangular piece of stiff paper, plastic etc.
5. (obsolete) A map or chart.
• 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.vii:As pilot well expert in perilous waue,
  Vpon his card and compas firmes his eye ....
6. (informal) An amusing but slightly foolish person.
• 1918, Siegfried Sassoon, "He's a cheery old card," muttered Harry to JackAs they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.. . .But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
• 2007, Meredith Gran, Octopus Pie #71: DeadpanMAREK: But really the deadpan is key. You can essentially trick people into laughing at nothing.EVE: Oh, Marek, you card.
7. A list of scheduled events or of performers or contestants.What’s on the card for tonight?
8. (cricket) A tabular presentation of the key statistics of an innings or match: batsmen’s scores and how they were dismissed, extras, total score and bowling figures.
9. (computing) A removable electronic device that may be inserted into a powered electronic device to provide additional capability.He needed to replace the card his computer used to connect to the internet.
10. A greeting card.She gave her neighbors a card congratulating them on their new baby.
11. A business card.The realtor gave me her card so I could call if I had any questions about buying a house.
12. (television)title cardtest card
13. (dated) A published note, containing a brief statement, explanation, request, expression of thanks, etc.to put a card in the newspapers
14. (dated) A printed programme.
15. (dated, figurative, by extension) An attraction or inducement.This will be a good card for the last day of the fair.
16. A paper on which the points of the compass are marked; the dial or face of the mariner's compass.
• ShakespeareAll the quarters that they know
  I' the shipman's card.
17. (weaving) A perforated pasteboard or sheet-metal plate for warp threads, making part of the Jacquard apparatus of a loom.
18. An indicator card.

Derived terms

Verb

1. To check IDs, especially against a minimum age requirement.They have to card anybody who looks 21 or younger.I heard you don't get carded at the other liquor store.
2. (dated) To play cards.

From Old French carde, from Old Provencal carda, deverbal from cardar, from Late Latin *carito, from Latin carrere ("to comb with a card"), from Proto-Indo-European *ker, *sker ("to cut").

Noun

1. (uncountable, dated) Material with embedded short wire bristles.
2. (dated, textiles) A comb- or brush-like device or tool to raise the nap on a fabric.
3. (textiles) A hand-held tool formed similarly to a hairbrush but with bristles of wire or other rigid material. It is used principally with raw cotton, wool, hair, or other natural fibers to prepare these materials for spinning into yarn or thread on a spinning wheel, with a whorl or other hand-held spindle. The card serves to untangle, clean, remove debris from, and lay the fibers straight.
4. (dated, textiles) A machine for disentangling the fibres of wool prior to spinning.
5. A roll or sliver of fibre (as of wool) delivered from a carding machine.

Verb

1. (textiles) To use a carding device to disentangle the fibres of wool prior to spinning.
2. To scrape or tear someone’s flesh using a metal comb, as a form of torture.
3. (transitive) To comb with a card; to cleanse or disentangle by carding.to card a horse
4. (obsolete, transitive, figuratively) To clean or clear, as if by using a card.
• unknown date T. SheltonThis book must be carded and purged.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To mix or mingle, as with an inferior or weaker article.
• unknown date GreeneYou card your beer, if your guests begin to be drunk, half small, half strong.