trump

• IPA^(key): /tɹʌmp/
• (some accents) IPA^(key): [t͡ʃɹʌmp]

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -ʌmp
• Homophone: Trump

Possibly from French triomphe (“triumph”) or Old French triumphe.

trump (plural trumps)

1. (card games) The suit, in a game of cards, that outranks all others.

   Diamonds were declared trump(s).

2. (card games) A playing card of that suit.

   He played an even higher trump.

3. (figuratively) Something that gives one an advantage, especially one held in reserve.
4. (colloquial, now rare) An excellent person; a fine fellow, a good egg.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 13

     All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon.

   • 1869, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women pg 19 and 163

     Brooke was a trump to telegraph right off.

   • Thackeray

     Alfred is a trump, I think you say.

5. An old card game, almost identical to whist; the game of ruff.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Decker to this entry?)

6. A card of the major arcana of the tarot.

For the top-ranking suit as a whole, American usage favors the singular trump and British usage the plural trumps.

trump (third-person singular simple present trumps, present participle trumping, simple past and past participle trumped)

1. (transitive, card games) To play on (a card of another suit) with a trump.

   He knew the hand was lost when his ace was trumped.

2. (intransitive, card games) To play a trump, or to take a trick with a trump.
3. (transitive) To get the better of, or finesse, a competitor.
   • Ben Jonson

     to trick or trump mankind

4. (transitive, dated) To impose unfairly; to palm off.
   • C. Leslie

     Authors have been trumped upon us.

5. (transitive) To supersede.

   In this election, it would seem issues of national security trumped economic issues.

• (to play a trump card on another suit): ruff
• (to get the better of a competitor): outsmart

• (to play a trump card on another suit): underruff, overruff

From Middle English trumpe, trompe (“trumpet”) from Old French trompe (“horn, trump, trumpet”), from Frankish *trumpa, *trumba (“trumpet”). Akin to Old High German trumpa, trumba (“horn, trumpet”), Middle Dutch tromme (“drum”), Middle Low German trumme (“drum”). More at trumpet, drum.

trump (plural trumps)

1. (archaic) A trumpet.
   • 1611, King James Bible, 1 Corinthians 15:52:

     In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible

   • 1798, Joseph Hopkinson, “Hail, Columbia”:

     Sound, sound the trump of fame,

2. (slang, Britain, childish, vulgar) Flatulence.
3. The noise made by an elephant through its trunk.

trump (third-person singular simple present trumps, present participle trumping, simple past and past participle trumped)

1. To blow a trumpet.
2. (intransitive, slang, Britain, childish, vulgar) To flatulate.

   And without warning me, as he lay there, he suddenly trumped next to me in bed.

Shortening of Jew's-trump, which may be from French jeu-trump, jeu tromp, jeu trompe (a trump, or toy, to play with).

trump (plural trumps)

1. (dated, music) Synonym of Jew's harp.

• Trump in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)