Euchre

//ˈjuːkəɹ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A trump card game played by four players in two partnerships with a reduced deck of 24 cards. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    a card game similar to ecarte; each player is dealt 5 cards and the player making trump must take 3 tricks to win a hand wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To deceive or outwit.

    "Well: he guesses They have euchred Mexico into some such Byzantine exercise, probably to do with the Americans. Perhaps the Russians."

Example

More examples

"In the smoking room, there were always parties of gentlemen playing euchre, draughts and dominoes."

Etymology

Possibly from German Juckerspiel, name of an eighteenth-century Alsatian card game, itself apparently a compound of Jucker (“joker?”, may be dialectal) + Spiel (“game”). Likely a doublet of joker.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.