Words of the Month - Cartomancy

         Continuing with my theme that started with block printed playing cards and moved on to cards used for divination, I now have Words of the Month that are related to cards and cartomancy.  And with that, I’ll begin with

cartomancy - this is the word for fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards.  The first element is from the Latin for “card,” while the suffix -mancy comes ultimately from Greek from “oracle, divination.”  This makes it a cousin of the praying mantis, which comes from the noun version of the same Greek root for a “seer, one who divines.”  Playing cards, by the way, are the first use of the word card in English in the early fifteenth century, and it was over a century before the use expanded to other small, stiff pieces of paper.  Ornamental greeting cards were first called such in 1862.

clubs and spades - These words are interesting not so much for their etymology as for the mix-up which attaches them to their suits.  Clubs is a reasonable English translation for the Italian suit bastoni, which was probably derived from the Mamluk suit of polo sticks, but is now called in English batons.  Its shape, however, is from the French suit in which it should properly be called a clover or trefoil, and which probably derives from the German suit of acorns.  Spades, meanwhile, is the Italian for the suit of swords, but its picture is the French piques or pike, which probably derived from the German leaf suit.  Confusing enough for you?  As I mentioned in the post on the printmaking history of cards, the French suits became dominant because their simplified two-color system was easier, quicker, and cheaper to print than the other European suit pictures that required four colors and lots more detail.  But why the English language persisted in using the older Italian words for two (but only two) of the suits is a mystery.

        in spades - (ca. 1929) Because spades are the highest-ranking suit in games such as bridge, to have something in spades means “in high degree, in abundance.”

suit - Ultimately from Latin, English got the word from French around 1300, meaning “a band of followers, retinue,” as well as the livery they might wear.  This gave rise by the late fourteenth century to “a set of clothes to be worn together,” “a series or sequence,” and “the group of playing cards bearing the same symbol.”  Around 1670 we get the phrase to follow suit with its figurative sense expanding beyond card games.

jack and knave - The face cards or court cards are another aspect of card decks which have varied widely over time and geography.  Kings, queens, over marshals, under marshals, maids, valets, farmers, and knights were among the variants.  In English, however, we now use kings, queens, and a third face card called knave in British English and jack in American English.  Knave derives from German Knabe, meaning “boy,” which may have originally been the prince, but then became the page or servant.  The word jack could refer to any man (see my prior post on J is for Jack), but why did it replace knave for cards?  In 1864 Samuel Hart published a deck of cards with a Jack to make it easier to differentiate the King (K) from the Knave (Kn) in the indices on the corners of a fan of cards.  Because Hart was American, the use of the word jack is more common in America - and because the usage was American, British English speakers considered it vulgar to call the “knave” a “jack,” despite the obvious advantage!  However, why Hart chose Jack instead of the French Valet or any number of other possible non-K synonyms, I don’t know.

joker - The joker joined the modern deck of cards during the US Civil War, as a trump card for the popular game of euchre.  It was Samuel Hart once again who printed the first illustrated card for the purpose in 1863, but he called it the “Imperial Bower.”  Bower was the standard word for trump cards in euchre, and it derived from German Bauer, meaning “farmer,” which was another name for the jack.  In the late 1860s we begin to see cards called “joker,” apparently because Juckerspiel was the original name for euchre.  But that brings us back to two cards labelled J just as we eliminated the confusion of two cards labelled K, so we probably should have stuck with bower!

ace - (ca. 1300) This word derives from Latin via Old French meaning “one,” and originally meant one on a die.  This was considered to be bad luck or “something of no value” until the word came to be applied to the playing card with one pip in the 1530s.  Since the ace in cards is usually the best, the metaphorical meanings for good luck or high value didn’t arise until the eighteenth century with the booming popularity of card games.

tarot - This word arrived in English at the end of the sixteenth century, by way of French, from Italian tarocchi, which was the name of a card game that used five suits of cards: the four suits in a regular deck, plus a fifth suit of special cards.  The word originally referred to just the special cards, and since the game itself never really caught on in England or with English-speakers, it’s not unreasonable to use the word tarot in English to refer to the special cards only.  But what is the etymology of tarocchi?  That’s a mystery, but the word taroch meant “foolishness” in Italian around the same time that the game started to be called this, so that seems suggestive.  In the fifteenth century before it got the name tarocchi, the game was originally called trionfi, which is the origin of…

trumps - In the first half of the fifteenth century the words trionfi (Italian) and triumphorum (Latin) were used to describe elaborate hand-illustrated decks with a suit of extra cards, commissioned by Italian noblemen.  It’s likely that the name came from the fact that many of the characters in the special cards were based on those in theatrical processions called trionfo.  Originally, therefore, the roots of the words tarot and trump were synonyms for these special illustrated cards.  By the time the word entered English around 1520, however, trump already referred to any card or suit of cards that ranked above the others, and was used in a number of different card games.

arcana - Modern tarot decks designed for occult purposes divide the Minor Arcana (regular suit cards) from the Major Arcana (the special illustrated cards).  This usage for cards began in the eighteenth century, but the word had been in English since about 1590, from Latin for “hidden things, mysteries.”

oracle - The more general term for a deck of cards designed for divination is an “oracle deck.”  Oracle comes from Latin, meaning “a message from a god, expressed through a priest or priestess.”  It entered English in the late fourteenth century.

left in the lurch - (1590s) This phrase comes from the card game cribbage, where a lurch is when a player loses by less than half the winner’s score.  It comes from Middle French lourche, where it was the name of a game similar to backgammon.

aboveboard - (1610s) From poker or similar games, in which putting your hands under the table might allow you to cheat by switching out cards.  Thus above board (board being the table) meant you were not trying to trick your opponents.  Meanwhile, the opposite phrase is under-the-table (1940s).

        For more magical playing card action, you can revisit the knavish antics in the court of Hearts at Q is for Queen or consider making your own deck at Stay-at-Home Activities.  And if you’re wondering how a mere game could involve so much lore, just see all that chess has given to the language in my Words of the Month - Checkmate!

[Pictures: King of Acorns and (below) Ober of Leaves, woodcut pub. by Anton Herbst, Prague, 1800-25 (Image from The British Museum);

Queen of Clubs from tarok pack, hand-coloured woodcut pub. by Johan Norbert Hofman, Vienna, 19th century (Image from The British Museum);

King of Leaves, hand-coloured woodcut pub. by Joseph Fetscher, Munich, 19th century (Image from The British Museum);

Face cards from “Republic” deck, design by UUSI Studio, Michigan (Image from uusi.us);

Valet d' Sper from tarot pack, hand-coloured woodcut by J H Ræder, Switzerland, 1783 (Image from The British Museum);

Cavalier di Bastoni from tarot deck, wood block print with stencil, pub. by F.F. Solesio, Genoa, 1865 (Image from Bibliothèque nationale de France);

Fante di Danari from tarocchi pack, hand-coloured woodcut pub. by Fratelli Avondo, Italy, 19th century (Image from The British Museum);

Two Jokers from card deck, linocut by anonymous student at the Hannover Werkkunstschule, ca. 1930 (Image from Peter Endebrock’s Playing-card Pages);

Ace, linoleum block print by Børge Bredenbekk (Image from Too Many Prints Artshop);

The Empress, wood block print, Italy, 15th century (Image from National Gallery of Art);

The High Priestess, linocut print by The Printmaking Bee (Image from The Printmaking Bee Etsy shop);

La Prudence from Les Récréations de la Cartomancie by Mlle Lemarchand, 1867 (Image from Bibliothèque nationale de France);

The High Priestess, lino print by Steph (Image from Cheers Thanxalot).]