poker hand
- noun
- /ˈpoʊkər hænd/
- He studied his poker hand carefully before deciding to bluff his opponents.
- played his poker hand
You have to learn those feelings, which is why when you fold a hand, you know, fold a poker hand over, but then you play a hand and you lose.
- You have to learn those feelings, which is why when you fold a hand, you know, fold a poker hand over, but then you play a hand and you lose.
- You find all of these, but they're like, you know, they're cards in your poker hand and you're not sure where you're going to play them or even if you're going to play them.
Examples
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Well, you have a very bad poker hand, dear.
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But do you know why this poker hand is so infamous?
Blog text (32) -
At one table, Loni Packwood lays down his poker hand.
Fiction book (2001) -
When she revealed her poker hand, everyone at the table gasped in disbelief.
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With a strong poker hand, she confidently raised the stakes in the game.
Synonyms
The cards that a player holds in a card game
Two cards of the same value in a poker hand
A hand of five cards all of the same suit, not in order
A poker hand with ace, king, queen, jack and ten all in one suit
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a set of cards dealt to a player in poker' is directly derivable from combining 'poker' (the card game) with 'hand' (the cards a player holds). This noun–noun composition follows a common, cross-linguistic pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Poker hand comes from the card game poker and the word hand, which here means the cards a player holds while playing. So poker hand means 'the five cards a player has' that they use to try to win.