Concerning the Term "Trump Card"

[Guest]

A trump card could be defined as a playing card that is part of a suit of trump cards.

 

In general, a suit of trump cards could be defined as a suit that is assigned a superior ranking that qualifies players to take tricks subject to rules that are not applicable to the remaining suits.

 

In the context of tarot cards, a suit of trump cards could be defined as a suit that comprises a variable number of playing cards that serve exclusively as trump cards.

 

[Note: in a trick-taking card game, a trick, which is taken or won, comprises the cards that are played during a round of gameplay.

The first player to play a card is said to lead to a trick and each subsequent player is said to follow to the trick.]

 

Rev. Walter Skeat notes that the term trump is a corruption of the term triumph ^[1], which he traces to the Latin triumphus ^[2].

 

[Note: Additionally, Skeat traces the etymology of the term triump to a Greek term* that he notes is used in reference to a hymn to Bacchus ^[3].

In consideration of the aforementioned, it is remarkable that the iconography of the fifth trump card of the Belgian Tarot should feature a representation of Bacchus.]

 

In the Tarot de Marseille patterns, there are 21 numerically ranked trump cards.

 

* The editor of the Online Etymology Dictionary cites the Greek term thriambos ^[4]. Using a transliteration application ^[5], I was able to confirm that thriambos is a transliteration of the Greek term that Skeat renders in Greek characters.

 

Concerning the Classification of The Madman or The Fool as a Trump Card

On his website, John McLeod notes that in Il Mondo e l’Angelo, Sir Michael Dummett distinguishes between three types of tarot card games, namely, type 1 (which comprises certain tarot card games that were originated in Italy), type 2, and type 3 (which comprises certain tarot card games that were developed as of the eighteenth century) ^[6].

 

According to my understanding of the descriptions that McLeod provides and of the rules of certain of the relevant tarot card games, the tarot card games that comprise type 1 (such as the game of Minchiate and the game of Sicilian Tarocchi) and those that comprise type 2 (such as the game of Troccas) are those in which a player cannot win the trick to which he or she leads or follows The Fool.

 

The tarot card games that comprise type 3 (such as the game of Hungarian Tarokk) are those in which The Fool, which is assigned the highest ranking, is played according to the rules that govern the play of trump cards (in describing type 3, McLeod uses the term trump card in reference to The Fool).

 

In the game of Troggu, which does not fit into the aforesaid categories, The Fool may be played as in the tarot card games that comprise types 1 and 2 or as in the tarot card games that comprise type 3.

 

In consideration of the aforementioned, one cannot accurately classify The Fool as being a trump card except, perhaps, in the contexts of certain tarot card games.

 

References:

1. Skeat, Walter W (1888). An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Page 666.

2. Ibid. Page 663.

3. Ibid. Page 663.

4. Online Etymology Dictionary. URL: https://www.etymonline.com/word/triumph#etymonline_v_17846. Retrieved 8 March 2020.

5. Transliterating English to Greek in One Step. URL: https://stevemorse.org/greek/eng2grk.html. Retrieved 8 march 2020.

6. Card Games: Tarot Games. URL: https:www.pagat.com/tarot/. Retrieved 8 March 2020.

 

Copyright © Kevin J W Mellors

Edited March 8, 2020 by Guest

[katrinka]

I've quit using the term "trump" for obvious reasons, lol. With Tarot, I call them "Majors". 
But if I find myself playing spades, I'm at a loss.

[Guest]

On 3/8/2020 at 11:00 PM, katrinka said:

I've quit using the term "trump" for obvious reasons, lol. With Tarot, I call them "Majors". 
But if I find myself playing spades, I'm at a loss.

Hello, Katrinka

 

I would be the first to admit that I can be quite slow and it certainly took a while, but I think that I understand your meaning 🙂

 

 

Regards

Kevin

[katrinka]

Exactly. 
With card games, and a good many readings, it's GOOD to have those.
IRL, not so much. 

We need a new word!

[53rdspirit]

14 hours ago, katrinka said:

We need a new word!

Triumph over Trump... let's do it the Latin way.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, 53rdspirit said:

Triumph over Trump... let's do it the Latin way.

I’m glad I am not the only one, @katrinka. I’ve started using the term triumphs as 53rdspirit states. I’m not comfortable with majors, as I think it means something different to triumphs. As for the Fool I also never seen it as a triumph. 

[AeonHorus]

Doesn't the word "Triumph" come originally from the word "Trump" and wasn't it called so because of "Bridge" and other popular card games of the era, one namely "Tarrock" 

 

 

Quote

 

Understanding Bridge: Trump and Notrump Play

You can’t get very far playing bridge if you don’t decode these funny phrases: trump and notrump. So, what do the terms trump and notrump mean to a bridge player?

 

Have you ever played a card game that has wild cards? When you play with wild cards, playing a wild card automatically wins the trick for you. Sometimes wild cards can be jokers, deuces, or aces. It doesn’t matter what the card is; if you have one, you know that you have a sure winner.

In bridge, you have wild cards, too, called trump cards. However, in bridge, the trump cards are really wild because they change from hand to hand, depending on the bidding.

 

Maybe you could start calling them "Wild Cards" or more lovingly "Oscars" 😉 

 

Quote

 

Tarot games, occasionally called tarock games, are card games played with tarot decks, also known as Tarock decks. The basic rules first appeared in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona, written before 1425. The games, known as "tarot", "tarock", "tarocco" and other spellings, are known in many variations, mostly cultural and regional.

The deck which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot is called Tarocchi in Italian, Tarock in German and various similar words in other languages. Tarot games originated in Italy, and spread to most parts of Europe, notable exceptions being the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, and the Balkans. They are played with decks having four ordinary suits, and one additional, longer suit of tarots, which are always trumps. They are characterised by the rule that a player who cannot follow to a trick with a card of the suit led must play a trump to the trick if possible. Tarot games may have introduced the concept of trumps to card games. More recent tarot games borrowed features from other games like bidding from Ombre and winning the last trick with the lowest trump from Trappola.

Tarot decks did not precede decks having four suits of the same length, and they were invented not for occult purposes but purely for gaming. In 1781, Court de Gébelin published an essay associating the cards with ancient wisdom, the earliest record of this idea, subsequently debunked by Dummett. As a result, tarot cards have since been used for cartomancy and divination as well as gaming, although nowadays fortune-tellers tend to use specially-developed tarot decks rather than those used for games.

 

 

Full article can be found here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_card_games

 

 

[Guest]

I cannot say for definite. However the Latin is triumphus which is triumph in English.

 

From memory, the Italian, I believe, is trionfi. 

[katrinka]

Thanks for this. Triumphs will certainly work.
Is there a plural form of trionfi?

[Flaxen]

10 hours ago, katrinka said:

Thanks for this. Triumphs will certainly work.
Is there a plural form of trionfi?

Trionfi is the plural. The singular form is trionfo. 

[katrinka]

Thank you!

One more potential for awkwardness - if you were playing a game, how would you use trionfo in a sentence equivalent to "He trumped it"?

[Flaxen]

Good question! My Italian skills are very rusty - I remember the singular-plural change but can’t help with that phrase. It might be something more idiomatic rather than a direct translation. Hopefully, an Italian speaker can come along and answer that. 

[gregory]

Use the verb trionfare.

 

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trionfare#Italian

 

But it's intransitive, so you'd just have to say ha trionfato - he triumphed.

 

(Trionfo does literally mean triumph, and there are decks where the major arcana are called the triumphs - http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/william-blake-triumphs/ for one.)

 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by gregory

[Grace]

Is there a glossary of these terms and what they mean in relation to tarot? 
I'm not really familiar with them outside of the nomenclature of everyday life as nouns or in proverbs.

[katrinka]

On 3/16/2020 at 4:54 AM, gregory said:

Use the verb trionfare.

 

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trionfare#Italian

 

But it's intransitive, so you'd just have to say ha trionfato - he triumphed.

 

(Trionfo does literally mean triumph, and there are decks where the major arcana are called the triumphs - http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/william-blake-triumphs/ for one.)

 

 

Just saw this.
Thanks, gregs!

[Merrick]

I’ve also begun using triumphs over trumps, although I understand why trump is appropriate as those cards trump the otherwise winning cards. I like triumph more for multiple reasons though, most of which are purely aesthetic rather than political. 
 

As for The Fool, I think it’s unnumbered status in virtually all pre-RWS decks (Or is it pre-Etteilla? I’m not up on my Etteilla knowledge) should indicate it’s not a triumph in the same way the rest of the numbered cards are.