trump card
1
3.7
- noun
- /trʌmp kɑrd/
:
carta triunfante
- He relied on his trump card to win the round, as it was the highest-ranking card in the suit.
- played the trump card
Examples
-
Loo—a card game; must win the trick with the high card or the trump card.
Blog text (30) -
My father played his trump card.
Fiction book (1998) -
I never played the trump card even in those cases; I just FTSU.
Blog text (5) -
In the game of bridge, a trump card can often lead to victory by beating other cards.
-
During the final hand of the poker game, she played a trump card that surprised everyone.
Synonyms
306
5.1
A suit or card that wins over other cards in a game
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an advantage or resource that gives someone the decisive edge' is directly inferable from combining 'trump' (to defeat/outdo) with 'card' (a playing card) — originally a card that beats others and then extended metaphorically. This game-based metaphor is common cross-linguistically and follows a straightforward compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would likely understand the MWE.
Etymology
Trump card comes from old card games where players chose one group of cards as the trump, and any trump card could beat cards from the other groups, so it was the card that 'won' the round.