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Glite Dictionary
fan tan

fan tan

1 9.9
A Chinese gambling game where players bet on how many counters remain under a bowl after grouping them by four
  • noun
translation icon : fan tan
  • During our visit to Chinatown, we watched a group of seniors play fan tan with great excitement and shouts.
  • Chinese playing fan tan

Examples

  • The only sound beside the noises of the Chinese at their fan-tan is the groper, who hollers for help as soon as he sees the cleaver.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Only the noise from the Chinese playing fan-tan in the far corner of the room can be heard now.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Ten seconds ago, in this room and fifty others, the game of fan-tan was in furious progress.

    Blog text (22)

  • I have attended rooms in Drury Lane... for-for the purpose of playing fan-tan.

    Oscar and Lucinda (1997)

  • Everyone shouts and scrambles to place bets with the fan-tan dealer.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The music and performance continue as we move past a pewter fan-tan table, where Chinese gamblers play with fierce animation and concentration.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • These FAN-TAN PLAYERS lean over an elegantly carved rail, peering at the action on the table below, placing their bets and collecting their winnings by means of a basket attached to wires that whirrs constantly.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The crowd gathered around the fan tan table, eagerly watching the dealer as he revealed the winning counters.

  • At the casino, players placed their bets on fan tan, hoping to predict the remaining counters after the game.

Synonyms

fantan
vsfan tan
9.9

A Chinese gambling game where players bet on the number left over when small objects are divided by four

is written as two separate words rather than one

Surface Forms

fan tan singular
fan tans plural

Morphology

fan + tan

This is a transliterated proper name for a specific Chinese gambling game; the listed constituents are not lexical English words here and carry no compositional meaning that would indicate the game's rules. Even if a learner knew unrelated English words spelled 'fan' or 'tan', those meanings do not predict the gambling-game sense, so the MWE is not derivable from its parts.

Etymology

The game fan tan comes from a Chinese gambling game where people put small counters under a bowl and the dealer removes them four at a time. One popular story says the words fan and tan refer to 'dividing' the counters and the last ones 'left' decide who wins, so the name now means that gambling game.