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Glite Dictionary
eldest hand

eldest hand

1 9.2
The player sitting immediately to the dealer's left who plays first
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : mano más antigua

Examples

  • Oh, and you're an old hand at this.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Seguilo was an old hand who knew the fables and lore, which he brought forth from time to time.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Colonel Celchu, Hobble, Janson, and Gavin Darklighter were old hands at pulling the teeth of raiders like these.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • In our card game, the eldest hand was the first to play after the dealer dealt the cards.

  • During the poker game, everyone waited for the eldest hand to make their move.

  • At the table, the player sitting to the dealer's left is referred to as the eldest hand, and they often lead the game.

Synonyms

elder hand
vseldest hand
  • Jargon
9.6

A player who sits to the left of the dealer and plays first

has identical meaning but is a different form of the same phrase

Surface Forms

eldest hand singular
eldest hands plural

Morphology

eldest + hand

The parts 'eldest' (oldest/first) and 'hand' (card-player) give a partial clue that this refers to a privileged or 'first' player, but the precise convention 'player to the dealer's immediate left / first to act' is a specialized card-game convention rather than a straightforward compositional meaning. A B1 learner who knows the words might guess it means the 'first' player or the 'senior' player, but would not reliably infer the specific seating/order meaning without exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Eldest hand comes from old card games, where the player sitting just left of the dealer played first. Here eldest means 'first' in order and hand means 'player', so the phrase now means the player who is 'first to act' in a round.