Solitaire

1722-1723, Alexander Pope, letter to a lady […] he really wishes he had never beheld you, nor yours. You have spoiled him for a solitaire, and a book, all the days of his life; and put him into such a condition, that he thinks of nothing, and enquires of nothing but after a person who has nothing to say to him, and has left him for ever […]

The early French solitaire boards were marked with thirty-seven holes instead of the modern board's thirty-three; and the problems were more difficult.

You like to sit high on a hill / Count the daisies in the field / It's your own way of playing solitaire / You won't answer no question / Or say where you've been / The last thing you think you need is a friend

Mr. Greenwood said yesterday that he always finished his work in a timely fashion, and that he played solitaire only when there was nothing else left to do, usually a few times a week or during lunch breaks.

I learned to play solitaire as a child. Its advantages over other games were obvious, even then. No need to persuade a friend to play or explain the boring rules, no hard feelings when someone won or lost, no lessons required, no costly equipment to badger my parents into buying. I could play whenever and wherever I wanted. All I needed was a deck of cards.

The Times reported ‘two pendant earrings formed of diamond solitaires of great splendor, supporting pear-shaped pearls of proportionate value, capped with brilliants.[…]’

The fellow wears a ſolitaire, uſes paint, and takes rappee with all the grimace of a French marquis.