poker

Meanings

Noun

• A metal rod, generally of wrought iron, for adjusting the burning log or coals in a fire; a firestick.
• A tool like a soldering iron for making poker drawings.
• One who poke.
• A kind of duck, the pochard.
• Knife.
• Any of various card games in which, following each of one or more round of deal or revealing cards, the player in sequence make tactical bet or drop out, the bets forming a pool to be taken either by the sole remaining player or, after all rounds and bets have been completed, by those remaining players who hold a superior hand according to a standard ranking of hand values for the game.
• All the four cards of the same rank.
• Any imagined frightful object, especially one supposed to haunt the darkness; a bugbear.

Verb

• To poke with a utensil such as a poker or needle.
• To play poker.

Related

Similar words

• firestick, stoker

Origin

• poke + -er
• American English, perhaps from first element of German Pochspiel, from German pochen, perhaps from French poque. First appeared in the 19th century.
• Compare Danish pokker ("the deuce, devil"), and English puck.