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Glite Dictionary
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strong suit

strong suit

1 6.1
A card suit in which a player has many high cards
  • noun
  • Jargon
translation icon : palo fuerte
  • In a game of hearts, having a strong suit can help you win more tricks.

Examples

  • If you hold several high hearts, that strong suit increases your chances of success.

  • In the last hand, her strong suit helped her win.

  • Clubs turned out to be her strong suit, giving her an advantage in the game.

  • He bid hearts because it was his strong suit in the hand.

  • If your strong suit is spades, consider leading with one in your first trick.

  • He played his strong suit expertly during the game.

  • Playing with a strong suit of spades, she took control of the card game.

How Strong

strong suit
  • Jargon
1 6.1
long suit
  • Jargon
7.2

Surface Forms

strong suit singular
strong suits plural

Morphology

strong + suit

The sense 'area of strength' is a metaphorical extension from the card-game sense of 'suit' rather than a direct compositional meaning of 'strong' + 'suit', so a B1 learner who only knows the basic senses of the words would not reliably infer it. Because 'suit' has several unrelated senses (clothing, legal action, card suit) and the idiomatic reading depends on cultural knowledge of card metaphors or prior exposure, the expression is partially but not fully predictable.

Etymology

Strong suit originally named the card suit where a player had many high cards. That suit gave the player a clear 'advantage' in the game, so the phrase means the suit with many good cards or a general 'advantage'.