full house
1. An assembly or audience which fills the building in which a performance is given or a meeting is held; also in extended use. Also, a session of a legislative or deliberative body, in which all or most of the members are present in their usual capacity (Funk's Stand. Dict. 1893).
| [1662–3 s.v. house n.1 4 g]. 1710 Steele Tatler No. 187 ¶5 The full House which is to be at Othello on Thursday. 1764 D. E. Baker Compan. Playhouse I, Minor... It brought full Houses for thirty-eight Nights. 1828 Olio 22 Mar. 164/1 A party of itinerant Maromeros (or rope dancers) held their exhibition in the large walled yard.., to about eight hundred people; which was considered as a very ‘full house’. 1961 Times 28 Aug. 3/1 It should be a full-house..when Spurs visit Old Trafford. |
2. Poker. A hand containing three of a kind and a pair (next in value below four of a kind). Also fig.
| 1887 Puck (U.S.) 7 Sept. 21/2 Noah drew to pairs and got a full house [in the ark]. 1908 C. E. Mulford Orphan xxi. 267 You two make a pair of aces what can beat any full-house ever got together. 1922 ― Tex iii. 33 Tex wondered what the crowd would say if he should lean over and pull a royal flush out of Williams' ear, or a full-house from the nephew's nose. 1929 E. Linklater Poet's Pub xxv. 274 He had filled the kitty roof-high, bluffed the four-ace-players, scared the full-house-holders. 1963 G. F. Hervey Handbk. Card Games 238 If the 3 of Diamonds is discarded, the odds against improving to a full house is about 11 to 1. |