court card

plural court cards

1. card gamesA king, queen, jack, or sometimes ace in a standard deck of playing cards.

   The King, his father, wearing a very white sports shirt open at the throat and a very black blazer, sat at a spacious desk whose highly polished surface twinned his upper half in reverse, making of him a kind of court card.

   1957 March 7, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 4.1, in Pnin, Heinemann, page 84

   1 more example

   There are fifty-two outcomes possible when we turn up a card, and if we do it from a freshly and fairly shuffled pack, each possibility has an equal chance. Probabilistic reasoning can then go forward: we can solve, for instance, for whether most draws of seven cards involve two court cards, or whatever.

   1999: Simon Blackburn, Think: A compelling introduction to philosophy, chapter 6: Reasoning, section 5: Plausible Reasonings, page 212 (Oxford University Press, paperback)

   Synonyms: face card, paint

2. UKhistoricalA postcard measuring approximately 4·75″ × 3·5″, in use mainly circa 1894–1902.