card

Ⅰ.

card [1] ► NOUN 1) thick, stiff paper or thin cardboard. 2) a piece of card for writing on, especially a postcard or greetings card. 3) a business card or visiting card. 4) a small rectangular piece of plastic containing machine-readable personal data, e.g. a credit card or cash card. 5) a playing card. 6) (cards) a game played with playing cards. 7) (cards) Brit. informal documents relating to an employee, especially for tax and national insurance, held by the employer. 8) informal, dated or N. Amer. an odd or amusing person.

► VERB ▪ write on a card, especially for indexing.

● a card up one's sleeve — Cf. ↑a card up one's sleeve

● give someone their cards (or get one's cards) — Cf. ↑give someone their cards

● hold all the cards — Cf. ↑hold all the cards

● on the cards — Cf. ↑on the cards

● play the card — Cf. ↑play the card

● play one's cards right — Cf. ↑play one's cards right

● put (or lay) one's cards on the table — Cf. ↑put one's cards on the table

ORIGIN Old French carte, from Greek kharts 'papyrus leaf' .

Ⅱ.

card [2] ► VERB ▪ comb and clean (raw wool or similar material) with a sharp-toothed instrument to disentangle the fibres before spinning.

► NOUN ▪ a toothed implement or machine for this purpose.

DERIVATIVES carder noun.

ORIGIN Provençal carda, from cardar 'tease, comb' , from Latin carduus 'thistle' .