pisha paysha
- noun
- /ˈpiːʃə ˈpeɪʃə/
- UK
- He taught his niece how to play pisha paysha using an old deck of cards.
Examples
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The children spent the afternoon playing pisha paysha with their grandmother.
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In some families, pisha paysha is a beloved holiday tradition.
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Let's play pisha paysha tonight!
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Do you know how to play pisha paysha?
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He taught his niece how to play pisha paysha using an old deck of cards.
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In some families, pisha paysha is a beloved holiday tradition.
-
The children spent the afternoon playing pisha paysha with their grandmother.
Surface Forms
Morphology
pisha + paysha
Both elements 'pisha' and 'paysha' are non-English, dictionary-unattested forms and provide no transparent lexical cues about a card game; a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would have nothing to compose. This is a borrowed, lexicalized name for a specific game (a proper noun), and such cultural or loanword labels are arbitrary and unpredictable, making the expression opaque to learners.
Etymology
Pisha paysha may come from Yiddish playful words, with the parts pisha and paysha sounding like the quick push-and-take of cards during play. That's why pisha paysha is used to mean 'a simple two-player card game' where players take turns and try to end with the fewest cards.
