canasta

What it means

1. uncountablecard gamesA card game similar to rummy and played using two packs, where the object is to meld groups of the same rank.

   Modern American Canasta is a younger cousin of the game of Canasta I explain here.

   2011, Barry Rigal, Card Games For Dummies, unnumbered page

   2 more examples

   “Do you know something, Fred?” she announced, “I won four dollars and eighty-five cents playing Canasta this afternoon.” “Canasta!” exclaimed Mr. Grimes, “I didn′t know you could play that silly game.”

   1951 July, Henry F. Tenney, “Per Stirpes and Not Per Capita: Or, What Your Clients Can Never Tell You”, in ABA Journal, page 492

   Imagine, first, two players who engage in a game of canasta according to a standard set of rules.[…]We may imagine, however, that at a certain moment the two canasta players cease to play canasta and start a discussion of the rules.

   2004, Gregory Bateson, “15: A Theory of Play and Fantasy”, in Henry Bial, editor, The Performance Studies Reader, page 130

2. countablecard gamesA meld of seven cards in a game of canasta.

   Groups of seven of a kind are called canastas, and before a player can go out he or his partner must have at least one canasta.

   1949 December 19, “The Canasta Craze”, in Life (magazine), page 47

In a sentence

“Do you know something, Fred?” she announced, “I won four dollars and eighty-five cents playing Canasta this afternoon.” “Canasta!” exclaimed Mr. Grimes, “I didn′t know you could play that silly game.”

1951 July, Henry F. Tenney, “Per Stirpes and Not Per Capita: Or, What Your Clients Can Never Tell You”, in ABA Journal, page 492

Where it comes from

1. Spanishcanasta
2. Englishcanasta

From Spanish canasta. The game originates from Uruguay.