Cards

How to spell cards

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cards

What does cards mean?

1. nounSmall, flat, stiff pieces of paper or plastic used for games, greetings, identification, or payment.

Cards in a sentence

• The family played cards around the kitchen table all evening.

• She sent thank-you cards to everyone who attended the wedding.

Where does cards come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Greek khartes, meaning a leaf of papyrus used for writing, which passed into Latin as charta with the sense of paper or a sheet. From there it travelled into Old French as carte, a flat piece of stiff paper, and English adopted it in the 1400s as 'card', first for the small painted pieces used in games. Over the centuries the meaning widened naturally to cover stiff pieces of paper of every kind: greetings, business contacts, identity, and eventually plastic payment slips. The same charta root sits behind 'chart', 'charter', and even 'carton', all sharing the idea of something written on or made of paper or board. The plural simply adds -s, and because the word ends in a voiced 'd', the ending sounds like 'z' even though it is spelled with an ordinary s.

How the word is built

• card (from Latin charta: a leaf of papyrus or paper)
• -s (plural suffix)