n. A card game ancestral to bridge, played with a full deck by two teams of two players, in which the last card dealt indicates trump, tricks of four cards are played, and a point is scored for each trick over six won by each team. [Alteration (perhaps influenced by the exclamation whist, silence!) of obsolete and dialectal whisk, perhaps from WHISK.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.