Suit (cards)

In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it. Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game. Unless playing with multiple decks, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers.

Western suit-systems

Various languages have different terminology for suits such as colors, signs, or seeds. Modern Western playing cards are generally divided into two or three general suit-systems. The older Latin suits are subdivided into the Italian and Spanish suit-systems. The younger Germanic suits are subdivided into the German and Swiss suit-systems. The French suits are a derivative of the German suits but are generally considered a separate system on its own.

Trump

A trump is a playing card which is elevated above its normal rank in trick-taking games. Typically an entire suit is nominated as a trump suit - these cards then outrank all cards of plain (non-trump) suits. In other contexts, the term trump card can refer to any sort of action, authority, or policy which automatically prevails over all others.

Etymology

The word "trump" derives from "trionfi" or "triumph", documented as the name of a card game in 1529 and which spawned the game Ruff and Honours, which in turn led to Whist. Trionfi was also the name of the original card game for which tarot cards were designed, and in it the tarot cards had the role of what are now called trumps; later card games, beginning with Triomphe, started using one of the ordinary suits as a replacement for the tarots when a tarot pack was not available.

Trump in card games

In most games, the relative rank of cards within a suit is the same in trump and plain suits, but they may sometimes differ, for example in Klabberjass, Euchre, or Eighty Points.