court card

English

Etymology

Unlike the numbered cards, these represent people of the kind that might be found at a royal court.

Noun

court card (plural court cards)

1. (card games) A king, queen, or jack/knave card in a standard deck of playing cards.
   • 1999: Simon Blackburn, Think: A compelling introduction to philosophy, chapter 6: Reasoning, section 5: Plausible Reasonings, page 212 (Oxford University Press, paperback, →ISBN

     There are fifty-two outcomes possible when we turn up a card, and if we do it from a freshly and fairly shuffled pack, each possibility has an equal chance. Probabilistic reasoning can then go forward: we can solve, for instance, for whether most draws of seven cards involve two court cards, or whatever.

2. (chiefly UK, historical, deltiology) A postcard measuring approximately 4·75″ × 3·5″, in use mainly in the United Kingdom circa 1894–1902.

Synonyms

• (playing card): face card, paint

Translations

king, queen, or jack/knave playing card

• Bulgarian: оньор m (onjor)
• Finnish: kuvakortti (fi)
• Swedish: klätt kort (sv) n, målare (sv) c

fin-de-siècle postcard