‖ vingt-et-un, † vingt-un
(vɛ̃t e œ̃), (vɛ̃tœ̃)
Also 8 -une.
[F., ‘twenty-one’.]
A round game of cards in which the object is to make the number twenty-one or as near this as possible without exceeding it, by counting the pips on the cards, court-cards counting as ten, the ace one or eleven as the holder chooses. (Cf. Van John.)
Also applied to a game at dominoes: see stone n. 13.
| α 1772 Duchess of Northumberland Diary 7 June (1926) xxxiii. 186 We play'd..at Vingt et un till supper Time. 1842 Dickens Amer. Notes (1850) 13/1 This passenger is reported to have lost fourteen pounds at Vingt-et-un..yesterday. 1853 ‘C. Bede’ Verdant Green xi. 102 It was a very different thing to playing vingt-et-un at home. 1872 E. Braddon Life India viii. 338 Happy gamblers, who look upon the scientific game much in the same way as they do vingt-et-un. |
| β 1781 Westm. Mag. IX. 604 Give the Beau-monde impertinent advice, Proscribe Vingt-une! prohibit box and dice! 1790 A. C. Bower Diaries & Corresp. (1903) 109, I was sat down with every Miss in Winchester to play Vingt une. 1804 Jane Austen Watsons (1879) 358, I have played nothing but vingt-un of late. 1868 E. F. Pardon Card Player 69 Vingt-un may be played by two or more players. |