court card
- noun
- /kɔrt kɑrd/
:
carta de figura
- During the game, players strategized about which court card to play for maximum impact.
Examples
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In a standard deck of cards, the court card includes the king, queen, and jack.
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The collector was excited to find an antique court card depicting a royal figure.
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If there are more major cards than court cards and pips put together, the reading is more a character analysis and less.
Blog text (19)
Synonyms
2
2.8
A playing card with a picture of a king, queen, or jack
1
2.6
A playing card with a picture of a person, like a jack, queen or king
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound combines 'court' (royalty/royal household) and 'card' (a playing card) in a straightforward, compositional way to mean a playing card depicting a member of the royal court. This noun-noun formation follows normal English compounding patterns and a B1 learner who knows both constituents can readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The compound noun court card comes from old playing cards that showed people from a royal court, like a king, queen, or jack. So, because these cards showed people, they became known as 'court cards' and today the phrase means 'a playing card that shows a person'.