card
/kɑɹd/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms cards carding carded
- noun A playing card.
- noun (in the plural) Any game using playing cards; a card game. “He played cards with his friends.”
- noun A resource or argument, used to achieve a purpose. (See play the something card.) “The government played the Orange card to get support for their Ireland policy.”
- noun Any flat, normally rectangular piece of stiff paper, plastic, etc.
- noun A bank card.
- noun Any electronic payment (rather than a cash payment using notes, bills or coins). “Cashier: "Cash or card? Customer: "I'm paying on my phone, so card."”
- noun (uncountable) Paper that is thicker and more durable than normal writing or printing paper, but thinner and more flexible than paperboard, used for postcards, playing cards, etc.; card stock. “Do you have any card? I want to make a poster.”
- noun (obsolete) A map or chart.
- verb (transitive, US) To check IDs, especially against a minimum age requirement. “They have to card anybody who looks 21 or younger.”
- verb (dated) To play cards.
- verb (transitive, golf) To make (a stated score), as recorded on a scoring card. “McIlroy carded a stellar nine-under-par 61 in the final round.”
- noun (uncountable, dated) Material with embedded short wire bristles.
- noun (dated, textiles) A comb- or brush-like device or tool to raise the nap on a fabric.
- noun (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.
- noun (dated, textiles) A machine for disentangling the fibres of wool prior to spinning.
- noun A roll or sliver of fibre (as of wool) delivered from a carding machine.
- verb (textiles) To use a carding device to disentangle the fibres of wool prior to spinning.
- verb To scrape or tear someone’s flesh using a metal comb, as a form of torture.
- verb (transitive) To comb with a card; to cleanse or disentangle by carding. “to card a horse”
- verb (obsolete, transitive, figuratively) To clean or clear, as if by using a card.
Synonyms
expansion card identity card wag wit poster posting placard notice bill calling card visiting card scorecard menu bill of fare carte du jour carte batting order lineup circuit board circuit card board plug-in add-in tease
Etymology
From Middle English carde (“playing card”), from Old French carte, from Latin charta, from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “paper, papyrus”). Doublet of carte and chart.
From Middle English carde, Old French carde, from Old Occitan carda, deverbal from cardar, from Late Latin *carito, from Latin carō (“to comb with a card”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”).
From Middle English carden, from Old French carder, from carde (“cotton card”); see Etymology 2 for more.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A piece of pasteboard, or thick paper, blank or prepared for various uses; as, a playing card; a visiting card; a card of invitation; pl. a game played with cards.
- noun A published note, containing a brief statement, explanation, request, expression of thanks, or the like; as, to put a card in the newspapers. Also, a printed programme, and (fig.), an attraction or inducement; as, this will be a good card for the last day of the fair.
- verb To play at cards; to game. Johnson.
- noun An instrument for disentangling and arranging the fibers of cotton, wool, flax, etc.; or for cleaning and smoothing the hair of animals; --usually consisting of bent wire teeth set closely in rows in a thick piece of leather fastened to a back.
Etymology [F. carte, fr. L. charta paper, Gr. Chart.]
Etymology [F. carde teasel, the head of a thistle, card, from L. carduus, cardus, thistle, fr. carere to card.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “card”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details