strong side
- noun
- Jargon
- During the last hand, it was clear that we had the strong side with all the high-ranking cards.
Examples
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In the card game bridge, our strong side won by taking most of the tricks.
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When playing spades, a team with a strong side often dominates the game.
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Strong side ! - Aah ! - Aah !
How Strong
- Jargon
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the part/area that is stronger or has more players' is directly and predictably built from 'strong' (having strength) + 'side' (a part/area or flank). This adjective+noun composition follows normal English patterns and is cross-linguistically obvious, so a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Strong side comes from card players who counted high cards; the partnership with most high cards was seen as the 'strong' side and likely 'to win the most tricks', so the phrase means the team expected to win the hand.