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Glite Dictionary
bridge whist

bridge whist

9.9
Early card game that lets the dealer choose the trump suit
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : bridge whist
  • Bridge whist allows the dealer to select the trump suit, unlike later versions of bridge.

Examples

  • The rules of bridge whist differ slightly from those in contract bridge.

  • My grandfather used to play bridge whist before the modern game of bridge became popular.

  • They played bridge whist every Saturday night.

  • My grandparents enjoyed bridge whist in their youth.

  • Bridge whist is a card game where the dealer has the option to choose the trump suit.

  • My grandfather taught me how to play bridge whist when I was a child.

  • The family gathered every holiday to play bridge whist after dinner.

Surface Forms

bridge whist singular
bridge whists plural

Morphology

bridge + whist

Both components are literal names of card games, so their combination straightforwardly signals a specific variety or hybrid of those games. There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift here — the sense of an early/variant form of bridge related to whist is directly inferable from the constituents.

Etymology

Bridge whist comes from mixing the older card game whist with a new way called bridge, where the dealer could 'choose the trump suit'. One popular story says players used a small signal called a 'bridge' to name trumps, so the name stuck and that's why bridge whist means the early form of bridge where the dealer picked trumps.