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. Most card decks also have a rank for each card and may include special cards in the deck that belong to no suit, often called jokers. Western card decks use hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds as the suits.

Traditional Western playing cards

Many different types of deck have been used in Europe since the introduction of playing cards around the 14th century, and several types of deck are still used in various regions for various games. Almost all of them have in common that there are exactly four suits, and numbers or other symbols indicate which cards within a suit are "better", "higher" or "more valuable" than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific game. There is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit.
The differences between European decks are mostly in the number of cards in each suit; for example,

• 13 in the commonly-known French deck,
• 14 in the French Tarot game
  Tarot (game)
  The French game of tarot, also jeu de tarot, is a trick-taking card game for four players using the traditional 78-card tarot deck. The game is enjoyed throughout France and also known in French-speaking Canada. French tarot is one of the older forms of tarot and has remained popular for centuries...
  
  ,
• 10 in Spain,
• 10 in Italy and in some games in Spain,
• 9 in Switzerland for the Jass
  Jass
  Jass is a trick taking card game and a distinctive branch of the Marriage family, popularly supposed to be the progenitor of the American game of Pinochle...
  
  ,
• 8 in some games in Germany and Austria,
• 8 for Belote
  Belote
  Belote is a 32-card trick-taking game played in France, and is currently one of the most popular card games in that country. It was invented around 1920, probably from Klaverjas, Klaverjassen, a game played since at least the 17th century in the Netherlands...
  
   in France,
• 5 in Hungarian Illustrated Tarock,

and in the inclusion or exclusion of an extra series of (usually) 21 numbered cards known as tarocks or trumps, sometimes considered as a fifth suit, but more properly regarded as a group of special suitless cards, to form what is known as a Tarot

Tarot, tarock and tarocchi games

Tarot, tarock, tarocchi, etc., are a group of card games played with the tarot deck. The first basic rules appear in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona written before 1425...

 deck.

The Italo-Spanish style suits are the original suits, the suits found on the divinatory Tarot deck, and the suits found in the oldest surviving European decks. The French style suits became popular after they were introduced, largely because cards using those suits were less expensive to manufacture; the traditional suits required a woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

 for each card, while with the French suits the "pip" cards—the cards containing only a certain number of the suit objects—could be made by stencils or stamps, and only the "court" cards, the cards with human figures, required woodcut illustrations.
All four European suit styles - Italo-Spanish, Latin-Tarot, Germanic and French - originally referred to the four major feudal classes: military, clergy, merchant/trade, and agriculture.

The four standard symbols were first used on French playing cards, made in Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 and Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

 in the 15th century, around the time that playing cards were first mass-produced by woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s.

In bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

, the suits rank clubs (lowest), diamonds, hearts, spades (highest).
In some card games of Germanic origin such as Skat or Sheepshead

Sheepshead

Sheepshead or Sheephead is a trick-taking card game related to the Skat family of games. It is the Americanized version of a card game that originated in Central Europe in the late 18th century under the German name Schafkopf. Although Schafkopf literally means "sheepshead", it has nothing to do...

, the suits rank clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds.

Clubs is also known as clovers or flowers. The clubs symbol was believed to be an adaptation of the German suit of acorns.

In the Germanic countries the spade was the symbol associated with the blade of a spade

Spade

A spade is a tool designed primarily for the purpose of digging or removing earth. Early spades were made of riven wood. After the art of metalworking was discovered, spades were made with sharper tips of metal. Before the advent of metal spades manual labor was less efficient at moving earth,...

. The English term "spade" originally did not refer to the tool but was derived from the Italian word spada = "sword

Sword

A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

" from the Italo-Spanish suit. Those symbols were later changed to resemble the digging tool instead to avoid confusion. In German and Dutch the suit is also, alternatively, named Schüppen and schoppen (shovel

Shovel

A shovel is a tool for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Shovels are extremely common tools that are used extensively in agriculture, construction, and gardening....

).

Translation table

Traditional Western Playing Cards
Culture	Suit
French France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...  suitsThe French suits are also an international standard, even in countries with differing traditional suits. In Germany, "Turnierbild" ("tournament-style") decks use four-color French symbols, with yellow Diamonds, green Spades and sometimes brown Clubs, as a compromise between French and German suits.	Hearts (Cœurs, Corazones, Copas, Herz, Hjärter, Srdce, Hjarta, Harten, Cuori, Cơ, Czerwień, Kier, Serce, Hairt, Καρδιά, Κούπα, Kupa)	Diamonds (Carreaux, Diamantes, Kára, Karo, Ouros, Ruter, Squares, Tigull, Ruiten, Quadri, Rô, Dzwonek, Muileata, Καρό, Karo)	Clubs ♣ (Trèfles, Tréboles, Clovers, Klöver, Kreuz/Treff, Kříže, Paus, Lauf, Klaveren, Fiori, Chuồn, Trefl, Żołądź, Triufanna, Τριφύλλι, Σπαθί, Sinek)	Spades ♠ (Piques, Espadas, Listy/Piky, Picas, Pik, Pikes, Spader, Spadi, Schoppen, Picche, Bích, Wino, Spéireataí, Πίκα, Μπαστούνι, Maça)
German Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...  suitsPopularity of these "German" suits depends on the region and the game involved; they are generally found only in 32-card decks for Skat or 48-card decks for Doppelkopf; German Bridge decks (with 52 cards) normally use the international/French suits. Skat and Doppelkopf decks are available in four-color French suits as well; see Note 1.	Hearts (Herz, Červený, Rot)	Bells (Schellen, Kule, Bumbl)	Acorns (Eichel, Alte, Žaludy)	Leaves, Grass or Green (Laub, Gras, Blau, Grün, Blatt, Schippen, Zelený)
Swiss German Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....  suits	Roses (Rosen)	Bells (Schellen)	Acorns (Eicheln)	Shields (Schilten)
Italo Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... -Spanish Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...  or Latin suitsIn Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... -speaking countries, the use of words varies, and the French suits are often used in Latin America Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area... n countries. (Symbols shown: Piacentine Piacenza Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza... , Napoletane Naples Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples... , Spagnole Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... , and Bergamasche Bergamo Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...  sets.)The symbols of the set from Piacenza Piacenza Piacenza is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza...  are the most commonly used in Italy but the symbols vary greatly depending on the part of the country the cards are from. For an exhaustive overview, please see this entry on the Italian Wikipedia Italian Wikipedia The Italian Wikipedia is the Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on May 11, 2001 and first edited on June 11, 2001. As of 2011 it has over articles and more than registered accounts... .	Cups (Coppe / Copas)	Coins (Denari / Oros)	Clubs (Bastoni / Bastos)	Swords (Spade / Espadas)
Tarot Marseilles/Rider-Waite (Most "playing Tarots" use either French or Italian suits, by region)	Cups	Pentacle Pentacle A pentacle is an amulet used in magical evocation, generally made of parchment, paper or metal , on which the symbol of a spirit or energy being evoked is drawn. It is often worn around the neck, or placed within the triangle of evocation... s, Coins, Rings or Discs	Wand Wand A wand is a thin, straight, hand-held stick of wood, stone, ivory, or metal. Generally, in modern language, wands are ceremonial and/or have associations with magic but there have been other uses, all stemming from the original meaning as a synonym of rod and virge, both of which had a similar... s, Clubs, Batons or Staves	Swords
Feudal Class/Caste	Clergy	Merchant	Peasants	Nobility
Element Classical element Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs... While this is the most common arrangement, opinions differ among divination experts on the elemental nature of the suits; Swords are often given the Fire element while Staves are given the Air element. Additionally, Staves can be given the Earth element with Coins being Air.	Water	Earth	Fire	Air
Number	2 (two lobes)	4 (four points)	3 (three lobes)	1 (one point)
Popularly associated with	love Love Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...  or romance Romantic love Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....	wealth Wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...  or riches	agriculture Agriculture Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...	war War War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...  or luck Luck Luck or fortuity is good fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention, or desired result. There are at least two senses people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense...
Use in cartomancy Cartomancy Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...	love, emotion or spirituality	material possessions and physical well-being	inner wisdom, industriousness and creative enthusiasm	adversity and challenge
Unicode Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...  black French symbols (with HTML names)	U+2665 (♥)	U+2666 (♦)	U+2663 (♣)	U+2660 (♠)
Unicode white French symbols	U+2661	U+2662	U+2667	U+2664

Trumps

In a large and popular category of trick-taking game

Trick-taking game

A trick-taking game is a card game or tile-based game in which play centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as Whist, Contract Bridge, Napoleon, Rowboat, and...

s, traditionally called whist

Whist

Whist is a classic English trick-taking card game which was played widely in the 18th and 19th centuries. It derives from the 16th century game of Trump or Ruff, via Ruff and Honours...

-style games although the best-known example may now be bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

, one suit may be designated in each hand of play to be trump and all cards of the trump suit rank above all non-trump cards, and automatically prevail over them, losing only to a higher trump if one is played to the same trick.

Special suits

Some games treat one or more suits as being special or different from the others. A simple example is Spades

Spades

Spades is a partnership trick-taking card game devised in the United States in the 1930s, in which the object is for each pair or partnership to take at least the number of tricks they bid on before play began. Spades is a descendant of the Whist family of card games, which also includes Bridge,...

, which uses spades as a permanent trump suit. A less simple example is Hearts

Hearts (game)

Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3–6 players. The game is also known as The Dirty, Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Crubs, and Black Maria, though any of these may refer to the similar but differently-scored game Black Lady...

, which is a kind of point trick game in which the object is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts. With typical rules for Hearts (rules vary slightly) the queen of spades and the two of clubs (sometimes also the jack of diamonds) have special effects, with the result that all four suits have different strategic value.

Ordering suits

Whist-style rules generally preclude the necessity of determining which of two cards of different suits has higher rank, because a card played on a card of a different suit either automatically wins or automatically loses depending on whether the new card is a trump. However, some card games also need to define relative suit rank. An example of this is in auction games such as bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

, where if one player wishes to bid to make some number of heart tricks and another to make the same number of diamond tricks, there must be a mechanism to determine which takes precedence in the bidding order.

As there is no truly standard way to order the four suits, each game that needs to do so has its own convention; however, the ubiquity of bridge has gone some way to make its ordering a de facto standard. Typical orderings of suits include (from highest to lowest):

• Bridge
  Contract bridge
  Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
  
   (for bidding and scoring) and occasionally poker: spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs; 'notrump' ranks above all the suits
• Preferans
  Preferans
  Preferans is an Eastern European 10-card plain-trick game with bidding, played by three players with a 32-card Piquet deck. It is a sophisticated variant of the Austrian game Préférence, which in turn descends from Spanish Ombre and French Boston....
  
  : hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. Only used for bidding, and No Trump is considered higher than hearts.
• Five Hundred: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades (for bidding and scoring)
• Ninety-nine: clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds (supposedly mnemonic
  Mnemonic
  A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...
  
   as they have respectively 3, 2, 1, 0 lobes; see article for how this scoring is used)
• Skat: clubs, spades, hearts, diamonds (for bidding and to determine which Jack beats which in play)
• Big Two
  Big Two
  Deuces is a card game similar to the game of Asshole, Crazy Eights, Bullshit, Winner, and other shedding games. It is sometimes called "Chinese poker" because of its Chinese origin and its use of poker hands, though there is actually a different game by that name of an entirely different nature...
  
  : spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds
• Teen patti
  Teen patti
  Teen Patti is a gambling card game that originated in India and became popular in South Asia. This game is also called Flash- Game Start :The game starts with one of the players dealing the cards...
  
  : In the case where two players have flushes with cards of the same value, the winning hand is based on suit color as ranked by clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds.

Pairing or ignoring suits

In some games, such as blackjack

Blackjack

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

, suits are ignored. In other games, such as Canasta

Canasta

Canasta is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 Rum. Although many variations exist for 2, 3, 5 or 6 players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of 7 cards of the same rank and...

, only the color (red or black) is relevant. In yet others, such as bridge, each of the suit pairings are distinguished.

Fundamentally, there are three ways to divide four suits into pairs: by color, by rank and by shape resulting in six possible suit combinations.

• Color is used to denote the red suits (hearts and diamonds) and the black suits (spades and clubs).
• Rank is used to indicate the major
  Major suit
  In the card game contract bridge, the major suits are spades and hearts . The major suits are of prime importance for tactics and scoring as they outrank the minor suits while bidding and also outscore them...
  
   (spades and hearts) versus minor
  Minor suit
  In contract bridge the minor suits are diamonds and clubs . They are given that name because contracts made in those suits score less than contracts made in the major suits , and they rank lower in bidding. In particular, one can make game with a bid of 4 in a major suit, while a bid of 5 is...
  
   (diamonds and clubs) suits.
• Shape is used to denote the pointed (diamonds and spades, which visually have a sharp point uppermost) versus rounded (hearts and clubs) suits.

In the event of widespread introduction of four-color deck

Four-color deck

A four-color deck is identical to the standard French deck except for the color of the suits. In a typical four-color deck, hearts are red and spades are black as usual, but clubs are green and diamonds are blue. However, other color combinations have been used over the centuries.In 1819, J.Y...

s, it has been suggested that the red/black distinction could be replaced by pointed bottoms (hearts and diamonds visually have a sharp point downwards, whereas spades and clubs have a blunt stem).

Four-color suits

Some decks, while using the French suits, give each suit a different color to make the suits more distinct from each other. In bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

, such decks are known as "no-revoke

Revoke

To annul by withdrawing.In trick-taking card games, a revoke is a violation of important rules regarding the play of tricks serious enough to render the round invalid...

" decks, and the most common colors nowadays are black spades, red hearts, blue diamonds and green clubs, although until very recent times, the diamond suit usually appeared in a golden yellow-orange. A recent related set occasionally used in Germany uses green spades (compare to leaves), red hearts, yellow diamonds (compare to bells) and black clubs (compare to acorns). This is a compromise deck devised to allow players from East Germany (who used German suits) and West Germany (who adopted the French suits) to be comfortable with the same deck when playing tournament Skat after the German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

.

Traditional Eastern suits and decks

Eastern cultures, particularly Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, were introduced to playing cards with the arrival of Portuguese explorer Francisco Xavier

Francis Xavier

Francis Xavier, born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary born in the Kingdom of Navarre and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534...

 in 1549 AD. With him and his sailors came a 48-card deck (12 ranks, four suits) that was popular for gambling games at the time. This 48-card deck was adopted by the Japanese for the same purpose. Increasing restrictions by the Tokugawa shogunate

Tokugawa shogunate

The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...

 on gambling, card playing, and general foreign influence, resulted in the Hanafuda

Hanafuda

are playing cards of Japanese origin that are used to play a number of games. The name literally translates as "flower cards". The name also refers to games played with those cards.-History:...

 card deck that today is used most often for a matching-type game of the same name. The role of rank and suit in organizing cards became switched, so the hanafuda deck has 12 suits, each representing a month of the year, and each suit has 4 cards, most often two normal, one Ribbon and one Special (though August, November and December each differ uniquely from this convention).

In China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

, the game of Mahjong

Mahjong

Mahjong, sometimes spelled Mah Jongg, is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players...

 developed as the result of a similar introduction to playing cards and was combined with the Hindu-Chinese development of dominoes

Dominoes

Dominoes generally refers to the collective gaming pieces making up a domino set or to the subcategory of tile games played with domino pieces. In the area of mathematical tilings and polyominoes, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge...

 resulting in tiles

Mahjong tiles

Mahjong tiles are tiles of Chinese origin that are used to play many games, most notably Mahjong and Mahjong solitaire. Although they are most commonly tiles, they may also refer to playing cards with similar contents as well.- Construction :Traditionally, Mahjong tiles were made of bone, often...

 instead of cards. These tiles are organized into the following groups: three major suits of nine unique values (Coins, Strings and Characters, derived from the ancient Chinese monetary system), plus four Honors (cardinal directions), four Flowers, four Seasons, and three Dragons (Red, Green and White). The full set has four copies of each value of each major suit, four of each Dragon and Honor tile value, and one of each Flower and Season tile, for 144 total tiles. They are used to play a game very similar to 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,...

; players draw and discard in an attempt to form their entire hand into one or more groups of tiles. They are also used to play a solitaire

Solitaire

Solitaire is any tabletop game which one can play by oneself or with other people. The solitaire card game Klondike is often known as simply Solitaire....

 game that is very popular in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in its electronic form. The Mahjong tileset is also available in the form of playing cards, making it more portable, but this is a relatively recent development.

In both Japan and continental Asia, the 52-card French-suited deck is also popular as are some of the games played with them.

Adding extra suits to the French deck

Numerous variations of the 52-card French deck have existed over the years. Most notably, the tarot

Tarot

The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...

 deck has a separate trump series in addition to the four suits; however this "fifth suit" is a series of cards of a different number and style than the suited cards. Various people have independently suggested expanding the French deck to five, six or even more suits where the additional suits have the same number and style of cards as the French suits, and have proposed rules for expanded versions of popular games such as 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,...

, hearts

Hearts (game)

Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3–6 players. The game is also known as The Dirty, Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Crubs, and Black Maria, though any of these may refer to the similar but differently-scored game Black Lady...

, bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

, and 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...

 that could be played with such a deck.

If commercially-made decks are not readily available, a deck with up to eight suits can be made from two identical decks by altering the suit symbols throughout one of them with a non-fading marker. R. Wayne Schmittberger in New Rules for Classic Games originated the idea of drawing an arrow through each heart to create "valentines" and a cross through each diamond to create "kites". Clubs would have their stem rounded to create "cloverleaves" and spades would have horns and tail added to become "devils".

Historical decks

In the mid to late 1930s there was an increase in the popularity of Bridge

Contract bridge

Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

. Thought up one summer night by Austrian gamester Walther Marseille, Ph.D., rules were first devised for a fifth suit based on a "green" or invulnerable suit. In 1937, a book for rules using the fifth suit was written in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria, and patented for this set of rules. This fifth suit was produced by a number of companies. In 1935, De La Rue

De La Rue

De La Rue plc is a British security printing, papermaking and cash handling systems company headquartered in Basingstoke, Hampshire. It also has a factory on the Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead, and other facilities at Loughton, Essex and Bathford, Somerset...

 of Great Britain created a Bridge deck called "De La Rue's Five Suit Contract Bridge Playing Cards." This deck contained cards using grey-blue colored crowns called "Royals" as a fifth suit. According to the rules published by Parker Brothers, credit is given to Ammiel F. Decker for the rules in 1933. The fifth suit of "Greens" was called "Blätter", or leafs. In 1937 and 1938, Waddington's of London created a fifth suit of more detailed crowns also called "Royals," which respectively featured light blue and dark green crowns. In the same year there were three American decks that included a green "Eagle" as a fifth suit in similar Bridge decks of playing cards. The deck published by United States Playing Card Company

United States Playing Card Company

The United States Playing Card Company, started in 1867, produces and distributes many brands of playing cards, including Bicycle, Bee, Hoyle, Kem, and others, plus novelty and custom cards, and other playing card accessories such as poker chips. The company was once based in Cincinnati, Ohio, but...

 used the Eagle in a medium green and the pips in the corners were inside green circles. The second deck was by Russell Playing Cards (owned by the United States Playing Card Company

United States Playing Card Company

The United States Playing Card Company, started in 1867, produces and distributes many brands of playing cards, including Bicycle, Bee, Hoyle, Kem, and others, plus novelty and custom cards, and other playing card accessories such as poker chips. The company was once based in Cincinnati, Ohio, but...

) used the same Eagle but in a darker shade and the pips in the corners were devoid of the circle. The third deck was by Arrco in 1938 and used an Eagle as well. At least five other bridge books were subsequently published to support playing Bridge with rules for this fifth suit, including one by Arrco in 1938. It is more than likely the book that Arrco published was for their own deck. Parker Brothers

Parker Brothers

Parker Brothers is a toy and game manufacturer and brand. Since 1883, the company has published more than 1,800 games; among their best known products are Monopoly, Cluedo , Sorry, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Ouija, Aggravation, and Probe...

 created a fifth-suit Bridge deck in 1938 called "Castle Bridge", in which the fifth suit of Castles looked like a Rook

Rook (chess)

A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...

 chess piece and was colored green. The rules are still available from the Hasbro website. After 1938, the popularity of this fifth suit fell off and the decks were no longer produced for Bridge. The title of a science-fiction novel by James Blish

James Blish

James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...

, Jack of Eagles, refers to the main character being 'different'.

A number of the following out-of-print decks may be found, especially through on-line auctions. Previously, Five Star Playing Cards poker sized, was manufactured by Five Star Games, which had a gold colored fifth suit of five pointed stars. The court cards are almost identical to the diamond suit in a Gemaco Five-Star deck. Five-suit decks using the Star suit are still in print in differing designs through vendors such as Stardeck and Newton's Novelties. Cadaco manufactured a game "Tripoley Wild" with a fifth suit, (and other Wild Cards,) which contain pips

Pips

Pips are small but easily countable items. The term is used to describe the dots on dominoes, dice, denote suits, and is the name for the small seeds of some fruits. It could be used as a synonym for dot in most situations, for example morse code....

 of all four standard suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs) on one card. That poker sized deck is not sold separately, but as part of boxed game. Five suited decks include Cinco-Loco Poker Playing Cards, produced by the USA Playing Card Company (not the United States Playing Card Company

United States Playing Card Company

The United States Playing Card Company, started in 1867, produces and distributes many brands of playing cards, including Bicycle, Bee, Hoyle, Kem, and others, plus novelty and custom cards, and other playing card accessories such as poker chips. The company was once based in Cincinnati, Ohio, but...

,) which introduces a new suit design. The Cinco-Loco fifth suit uses a complicated pattern, with color designs in a repeating circular series of pentagrams with four traditional suits in a four color pattern, inner circles get increasingly smaller, the fifth symbol in the circle of pentagrams is a yellow pentagram. There are then a total of ten symbols in each of the outer and repeated in inner circles. The other suits use a four-color design.

Commercial decks

A commercially available five-suit poker (65-card) deck is Stardeck, which introduces "stars" as a fifth suit. In the Stardeck cards, the fifth suit is colored a mixture of black and red. This fifth suit can be counted as either a Red or a Black suit dependent upon the game being played.

Another five suited deck is "Don't Quote Me," with single quotations as the fifth suit. The cards are pentagonal.

Five Crowns is yet another five-suited deck, with no-revoke suits and stars as the fifth suit. The deck does not contain aces or twos.

5° Dimension, is an 80-card deck introduced in 2007. The five suits are Hearts (red), Spades (black), Clubs (green), Diamonds (yellow) and Stars (blue). Each suit has 16 cards: 1 to 10, King, Queen, Jack, Princess, Ace (distinct from 1) and a Joker.

Five-suited decks find some use in cartomancy

Cartomancy

Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century...

. In these contexts, the fifth suit is used for its association with the classical element Aether

Aether (classical element)

According to ancient and medieval science aether , also spelled æther or ether, is the material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.-Mythological origins:...

, also called Void or Sky.

Historical decks

In America in 1895, Hiram Jones created a deck called "International Playing Cards" and it had two additional suits, a red suit with crosses and a black suit of bullets. (The bullets of that period were round, hence the pip looks like a circle.) Other attempts over the years experimented with either suit substitutions or additional suits added to decks of playing cards. Most of these did not last long, and some such as Civil War era card decks enjoyed limited success and are reprinted today.

Out of print is the Sextet Bridge Deck (copyright Ralph E. Peterson 1964, 1966), produced for Secobra Cards by the United States Playing Card Company

United States Playing Card Company

The United States Playing Card Company, started in 1867, produces and distributes many brands of playing cards, including Bicycle, Bee, Hoyle, Kem, and others, plus novelty and custom cards, and other playing card accessories such as poker chips. The company was once based in Cincinnati, Ohio, but...

. Two blue suits are added to the standard four: Rackets being a pair of crossed tennis rackets, and Wheels from a ship's steering wheel design.

Commercial decks

A commercially available six-suited (78-card) deck of poker sized playing cards is the Empire Deck. It has three red suits and three black suits, introducing crowns in red and anchors in black as in the dice game Crown and Anchor

Crown and anchor

Crown and Anchor is a simple dice game, traditionally played for gambling purposes by sailors in the British Royal Navy, and also in the British merchant and fishing fleets.The game originated in the 18th century...

.

Commercial decks

8 Suits Playing Cards, conceived in the late Seventies and manufactured through BrienmarK Products Inc., adds red Moons, black Stars, red four-leaf Clovers and black Tears. This deck was originally created to allow more players in a game of euchre

Euchre

Euchre or eucre, is a trick-taking card game most commonly played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing cards. It is the game responsible for introducing the joker into modern packs; this was invented around 1860 to act as a top trump or best bower...

.

The Fat Pack adds red Roses, black Axes, black Tridents and red Doves to the standard deck.

Suit-and-value decks

A large number of games are based around a deck in which each card has a value and a suit (usually represented by a color), and for each suit there is exactly one card having each value, though in many cases the deck has various special cards as well. Examples include Mü und Mehr, Lost Cities

Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. The objective of the game is to mount profitable expeditions to one or more of the five lost cities...

, DUO, Sticheln, Rage

Oh Hell

Oh Hell is...

, Schotten Totten, UNO, Phase 10

Phase 10

Phase 10 is a card game created in 1982 by Kenneth Johnson and currently produced by Fundex Games. Phase 10 is based on a variant of rummy known as Liverpool Rummy. It requires a special deck or two regular decks of cards; it can be played by two to six people...

, Oh-No!, Skip-Bo

SKIP-BO

SKIP-BO is a commercial version of the card game Spite and Malice. In 1967, Ms. Hazel Bowman of Brownfield, Texas began producing a boxed edition of the game under the name Skip-bo...

, and Rook.

Other suited decks

Decks for some games are divided into suits, but otherwise bear little relation to traditional games. An example would be the game Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal (board game)

Taj Mahal is a German-style board game for 3–5 players designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 2000 by Alea in German.- Basics :...

, in which each card has one of four background colors, the rule being that all the cards played by a single player in a single round must be the same color. The selection of cards in the deck of each color is approximately the same and the player's choice of which color to use is guided by the contents of their particular hand.

One card game published in the United States in Kalamazoo, Michigan by the A.J.Patterson and later Flinch Card Co. (copyright 1912,) was Roodles. The deck consists of 14 cards in each of four suits, Wishbones, Horseshoes, 4-Leaf Clovers, and Swastikas. Roodles was purported on the box cover as simple, instructive, scientific and entertaining. The Joker had the name of "Roodles" on the card, instead of "Joker". These suits were all printed in black.

In the trick-taking card game Flaschenteufel (The Bottle Imp

The Bottle Imp

The Bottle Imp is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson usually found in the short story collection Island Nights' Entertainments...

) players must follow the suit led, but if they are void in that suit they may play a card of another suit and this can still win the trick if its value is high enough. For this reason every card in the deck has a different number to prevent ties. A further strategic element is introduced since one suit contains mostly low cards and another, mostly high cards.

A special mention should be made of the card game Set

SET (game)

Set is a real-time card game designed by Marsha Falco in 1974 and published by Set Enterprises in 1991. The deck consists of 81 cards varying in four features: number ; symbol ; shading ; and color...

. Whereas cards in a traditional deck have two classifications—suit and rank—and each combination is represented by one card, giving for example 4 suits × 13 ranks = 52 cards, each card in a Set deck has four classifications each into one of three categories, giving a total of 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81 cards. Any one of these four classifications could be considered a "suit", but this is not really enlightening in terms of the structure of the game.

Another special mention should be made of the 9 suited decks sold by TSR for use with the Dragonlance: Fifth Age Roleplaying game. These decks, sold both separately and included in the game, also can be used for several card game uses. The deck has Shields, Arrows, Helms, Swords, Crescent Moons, Orbs, Hearts, and Crowns, each suit numbered 1-9, plus a suit of dragons numbered 1-10, providing an 82 card deck. The system was released in 1996.

Fictional decks

Several people have invented decks which are not meant to be seriously played. The Double Fanucci deck from Zork

Zork

Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...

 takes the most imaginative licence with the suits: it has no fewer than fifteen, with the names Mazes, Books, Rain, Bugs, Fromps, Inkblots, Scythes, Plungers, Faces, Time, Lamps, Hives, Ears, Zurfs, and Tops.

The Cripple Mr. Onion deck uses eight fictional suits, but may be simulated by combining the standard French suits with the traditional Latin suited ones or by using a modern 8-suited deck.

The Discordian

Discordianism

Discordianism is a religion based on the worship of Eris , the Greco-Roman goddess of strife. It was founded circa 1958–1959 after the publication of its holy book the Principia Discordia, written by Malaclypse the Younger and Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst after a series of shared hallucinations at a...

 deck is a parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 of the Tarot deck, its five suits corresponding to the five Discordian elements.

The card game of sabacc from the Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

 universe has the suits of staves, flasks, sabers, and coins (similar to Latin suits), with cards ranked one through fifteen, plus two each of eight other cards which have no suit.

The deck used in Firefly

Firefly (TV series)

Firefly is an American space western television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon, under his Mutant Enemy Productions label. Whedon served as executive producer, along with Tim Minear....

 has suits of Plum, Peach, Orange, Apple, Apricot, and Banana.

In World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

, there are cards that randomly drop from humanoid enemies. If a player collected the entire suit, he/she could trade it for a trinket that would grant special abilities. Initially, this was limited to the ace through eight of the suits of Elementals, Beasts, Warlords, and Portals. A later content patch added the suits of Lunacy, Storms, Furies, and Blessings. The Inscription skill allowed the crafting of cards of the suits of Mages, Swords, Rogues, and Demons.

Uses of playing card suit symbols

Card suit symbols occur in places outside card playing:

• The four suits were famously employed by the 101st Airborne Division
  101st Airborne Division
  The 101st Airborne Division—the "Screaming Eagles"—is a U.S. Army modular light infantry division trained for air assault operations. During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, in Normandy, France, Operation Market Garden, the...
  
   during World War II
  World War II
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
  
   to distinguish its four constituent regiments:
  • Clubs (♣) identified the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment; currently worn by the 1st Brigade Combat Team.
  • Diamonds (♦) identified the 501st PIR
    501st Parachute Infantry Regiment
    The 501st Airborne Infantry Regiment is the first Airborne unit in the United States Military. It has been assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team , 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army, and is located in Fort Richardson, Alaska, to serve as a strategic front to the Department of Defense's Pacific...
    
    . 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment is now part of the 4th Brigade (ABN), 25th Infantry Division in Alaska; the Diamond is currently used by the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade.
  • Hearts (♥) identified the 502nd PIR; currently worn by the 2d Brigade Combat Team.
  • Spades (♠) identified the 506th PIR; currently worn by the 4th Brigade Combat Team.
• British Navy Fleet Air Arm
  Fleet Air Arm
  The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...
  
   search and rescue
  Search and rescue
  Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
  
   units (helicopters, etc.) sport an "ace of clubs" symbol.
• The United States Navy
  United States Navy
  The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
  
  's Strike Fighter Squadron 41 (VFA-41)
  VFA-41
  Strike Fighter Squadron 41 also known as the "Black Aces", is a United States Navy strike fighter squadron based at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California ....
  
   is nicknamed "The Black Aces" and their insignia is a playing card with the spade present and numbered "41".
• The Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
  ese television series Kamen Rider Blade
  Kamen Rider Blade
  , is a Japanese tokusatsu superhero television series. It is the fourteenth installment in the Kamen Rider Series. It aired on TV Asahi from January 25, 2004 to January 23, 2005. It is a joint collaboration between Ishimori Productions and Toei. Along with the standard insect motif of the Kamen...
  
   uses the playing cards and their symbols as an overall motif for the series. Each of the four Kamen Riders derives his name from the Minor Arcana
  Minor Arcana
  |thumb|[[King of Swords]] card from a Minor Arcana deckThe Minor Arcana of occult or divinatory tarot refers to the portion of a Tarot deck that consists of 56 cards. The Minor Arcana are roughly similar to the cards found in a common deck of playing cards...
  
   that parallels the four suits: Blade represents Spades, Garren (based on the word "Galleon") represents Diamonds, Chalice represents Hearts, and Leangle (a type of Aborigine war-club) represents Clubs.

Metaphorical uses

In some card games the card suits have a dominance order: club (lowest) - diamond - heart - spade (highest). That led to "in spades" being used to mean "more than expected, in abundance, very much".

Other expressions drawn from bridge and similar games include "strong suit" (used to refer to any area of personal strength) and "following suit" (in the sense of "going along with the crowd").

See also

• 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...
  
  
• Chinese origin of playing cards
  Chinese origin of playing cards
  Chinese Origin of Playing Cards is an article on the origin of playing cards written by H.B.M General-Consul in China and Korea Sir William Henry Wilkinson, and published in the American Anthropologist magazine by the American Anthropological Association under the auspices of the American...
  
  
• Hearts (card game)
• Playing cards
• Spades (card game)

External links

• The Games Journal article on card decks
• Stardeck (with rules for 5-suited Poker and Spades)
• Empire Deck (with rules for 5- and 6-suited Rummy and Hearts)
• Super-Bridge A reprinted article by Time Magazine from 1938, describing origins of five-suited bridge decks
• the Discordian Tarot
• Five Crowns, a 5-suits deck
• 5°Dimension, a deck with 5 suits of 16 cards each