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1. A Chinese betting game in which the players lay wagers on the number of counters that will remain when a hidden pile of them has been divided by four.
2. A card game in which sequentially higher and lower cards are played starting with the sevens, the first player to run out of cards being the winner.
[Mandarinfān tān : fān, turn (fromMiddle Chinesefaːn) + tān, to spread out (fromMiddle Chinesethan).]
Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:
The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.