Whist
adj, intj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of several four-player card games, similar to bridge. countable, uncountable
- 2 a card game for four players who form two partnerships; a pack of 52 cards is dealt and each side scores one point for each trick it takes in excess of six wordnet
- 3 A session of playing this card game. countable, uncountable
- 1 To hush or shush; to still. rare, transitive
"o was the Titaness put downe and whist"
- 2 To become silent. intransitive, rare
"The fields whist, beasts, and fowls of divers bue"
- 1 Silent, hushed. rare
"Come unto these yellow sands, / And then take hands: / Courtsied when you have and kiss'd / The wild waves whist, / Foot it featly here and there; / And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.[…]"
- 1 Alternative spelling of whisht. Silence!, quiet!, hush!, shhh!, shush! alt-of, alternative
"… for scarcely had they descended one hundred feet, when a low “whist” from the girl, warned them of present danger."
Example
More examples"Playing whist by the cabin lamps when it is storming outside is pleasant; walking the quarterdeck in the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant when one is not afraid to go up there; but these are all feeble and commonplace compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the miseries of seasickness."
Etymology
Alteration of whisk, perhaps so called from the notion of “whisking” up cards after each trick. Altered perhaps on assumption that the word was an interjection invoking silence, by influence of whist (“silent”).
From Middle English whist (“silent”), possibly onomatopoeic.
Related phrases
More for "whist"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.