A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games. Playing cards are typically palm-sized for convenient handling.
A complete set of cards is called a pack (UK English) or deck (US English), and the subset of cards held at one time by a player during a game is commonly called a hand. A deck of cards may be used for playing a great variety of card games, with varying elements of skill and chance, some of which are played for money. Because playing cards are standardized and commonly available, they are used for other purposes, such as illusions, cartomancy, cardistry, and building card structures.
The front (or "face") of each card carries markings that distinguish it from the other cards in the deck and determine its use under the rules of the game being played. The back of each card is identical for all cards in any particular deck, and usually of a single color or formalized design. Usually every card will be smooth; however, some decks have braille to allow blind people to read the card number and suit. The backs of playing cards are sometimes used for advertising. For most games, the cards are assembled into a deck, and their order is randomized by shuffling.
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Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or card:
“All those who dwell in the depths find their happiness in being like flying fish for once and playing on the uppermost crests of the waves. What they value most in things is that they have a surface, their “epidermality”Msit venia verbo.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“There is undoubtedly something religious about it: everyone believes that they are special, that they are chosen, that they have a special relation with fate. Here is the test: you turn over card after card to see in which way that is true. If you can defy the odds, you may be saved. And when you are cleaned out, the last penny gone, you are enlightened at last, free perhaps, exhilarated like an ascetic by the falling away of the material world.”
—Andrei Codrescu (b. 1947)