full house
16
4.2
- noun
- /fʊl haʊs/
- Jargon
:
full
- He won the pot with a full house of three queens and two fives.
Examples
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Front Porch Pub has a full house for its trivia night.
Blog text (4) -
Coyote holds a full house in his hand.
Fiction book (1990) -
- Says the guy with a full house.
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- Look like I got a full house.
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Ah, come on, you know it's a full house.
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Oh, it's a full house.
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The man had a full house, and he knew it!
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- Full house, aces over kings.
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The machine showed its hand: a full house; kings and aces.
Fiction book (2000) -
Orfeu da Conceição opened September 25, 1956, at the Teatro Municipal in Rio and played to a full house for a week.
Academic text (1998)
Surface Forms
Morphology
full + house
The poker meaning (three of a kind plus a pair) cannot be derived from the literal senses of 'full' (completely filled) and 'house' (a dwelling); a B1 learner who knows both words would more likely imagine a dwelling that is full rather than a specific card combination. This is a domain-specific, lexicalized term in card games that is unpredictable from its parts, so learners need exposure to the poker sense to understand it.
Etymology
Full house The noun full house comes from the image of a house that is completely full. In poker, a hand with three cards of the same value and two of another is a complete set, so players called it a full house because the words full and house suggest something filled.