An ace is a playing card

Playing card

A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...

. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit

Suit (cards)

In playing cards, a suit is one of several categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several symbols showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or in addition be indicated by the color printed on the card...

 symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the Ace of Spades

Ace of Spades

At least in English-speaking countries, the ace of spades is traditionally seen as the highest card in the deck of playing cards, although the actual value of the card varies from game to game...

. This embellishment on the Ace of Spades started when King James I of England required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the Ace of Spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new tax. Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers.

The word "ace" comes from the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 word 'as' (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 coin. It originally meant the side of dice

Dice

A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

 with only one mark, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

, but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has since changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'. This connotation has seen the word applied to an unreachable tennis serve

Ace (tennis)

In tennis, an ace is a legal serve that is not touched by the receiver, winning the point.In professional tennis, aces are generally seen on a player's first serve, where the server can strike the ball with maximum force and take more chances with ball placement .The most common placement of an ace...

, a successful fighter pilot

Flying ace

A flying ace or fighter ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down several enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The actual number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an "ace" has varied, but is usually considered to be five or more...

 and more generally as a person proficient in their field, especially a sporting field.

Historically, the ace had the lowest value and this still holds in many popular European games (in fact most European decks, including the French Tarot Nouveau

Tarot Nouveau

The Tarot Nouveau, French Tarot Nouveau or Bourgeois Tarot deck is a general style of tarot playing card deck. The Tarot Nouveau differs from other styles of tarot deck, such as the Tarot of Marseilles and Rider-Waite decks, in that the Tarot Nouveau is designed solely for playing the various tarot...

, do not use the "A" index, instead keeping the numeral "1"). However, in most games popular in the English-speaking world, aces have the highest value of all cards in a suit. Many games, such as poker

Poker

Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...

 and blackjack

Blackjack

Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...

, allow the player to choose whether the ace is used as a high or low card. This duality allows players in some other games to use it as both at once; some variants of Rummy

Rummy

Rummy is a group of card games notable for gameplay based on the matching of similar playing cards. The Mexican game of Conquian is considered by David Parlett to be ancestral to all rummy games, which itself is derived from a Chinese game called Khanhoo and, going even further back,...

 allow players to form groups, or "melds", of rank K-A-2 or similar. This is known colloquially as "going around the corner".

Ace-high origin

The folk tradition of "ace high" existed in some games as of the late 15th century, for example Three-card brag, a precursor to modern forms of Poker

Poker

Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...

. It was not only the French deck which experienced this promotion, but some games involving the German deck also evolved into using the Daus (two) as the highest card. The use of the ace as the highest card in the French deck gained more widespread acceptance as a result of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. Examples of the ace being a high card include the game Hearts as well as the game show Card Sharks

Card Sharks

Card Sharks is an American television game show created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. Two contestants compete for control of a row of oversized playing cards by answering questions posed by the host and then guessing if the next card is higher or lower in value than...

.

The promotion of the ace symbolised the removal of the nobility (especially King Louis XVI) and the promotion of the common man

Common man

Common man may refer to:*Common people*Champion of the Common Man*"Common Man progrum" on sport hosted by Dan Cole*The cartoon character by R K Laxman, The Common Man*The Common Man , the 1975 French film...

. In addition to this move, the traditional court card imagery of the nobility had the crowns removed so as to give human personifications to chosen democratic ideals (Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité). Upon the rise of Napoleon to Emperor, royalty became more popular once more and the royal court was re-established on the imagery of the cards. Napoloen commissioned an artist to depict a more historically-correct court, but the move proved unpopular and the medieval court figures were quickly reinstated.
Historically, the ace had the lowest value and this still holds in many popular European games (in fact most European decks, including the French Tarot Nouveau, do not use the "A" index, instead keeping the numeral "1"). However, in most games popular in the English-speaking world, aces have the highest value of all cards in a suit. Many games, such as poker and blackjack, allow the player to choose whether the ace is used as a high or low card. This duality allows players in some other games to use it as both at once; some variants of Rummy allow players to form groups, or "melds", of rank K-A-2 or similar. This is known colloquially as "going around the corner".

Example cards

Ace of Spades	Ace of Clubs	Ace of Hearts	Ace of Diamonds