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An ace is a
playing card A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...
,
die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
or domino with a single pip. In the standard
French deck French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...
, an ace has a single
suit A suit, lounge suit, or business suit is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt suit is similar, but with a matching skirt instead of tr ...
symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades. This embellishment on the ace of spades started when
King James VI of Scotland and I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...
required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new
stamp tax Stamp duty is a tax that is levied on single property purchases or documents (including, historically, the majority of legal documents such as cheques, receipts, military commissions, marriage licences and land transactions). A physical revenu ...
. Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers. In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.


Etymology

The word "ace" comes from the
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
word ''as'' (from Latin 'as') meaning 'a unit', from the name of a small Roman coin. It originally meant the side of a
die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...
with only one pip, before it was a term for a playing card. Since this was the lowest roll of the die, it traditionally meant 'bad luck' in
Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
, but as the ace is often the highest playing card, its meaning has since changed to mean 'high-quality, excellence'.


Ace promotion

Historically, the ace had a low value and this still holds in many popular European games (in fact many European decks, including the French- and Latin-suited decks, do not use the "A" index, instead keeping the numeral "1"). The modern convention of "ace high" seemed to have happened in stages. Card games, before they arrived in Europe, had suits that were in reverse ranking. In the Chinese game of
Mǎ diào ''Madiao'' (), also ''ma diao'', ''ma tiu'' or ''ma tiao'', is a late imperial Chinese trick-taking gambling card game, also known as the game of ''paper tiger''. The deck used was recorded by Lu Rong in the 15th century and the rules later by Pan ...
, which lacked court cards, the suit of coins was inverted so the 1 of Coins was the highest in its suit. In the Ganjifa games of Persia, India, and Arabia, only the pip cards of half the suits were reversed so the 1 ranked just below the lowest court card. This convention carried over to early European games like Ombre, Maw, and Trionfi (
Tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...
). During the 15th and 16th centuries, the ranking of all suits were becoming progressive. A few games from this period like
Triomphe Triomphe (French for triumph), once known as French Ruff, is a card game dating from the late 15th century. It most likely originated in France or Spain (as triunfo) and later spread to the rest of Europe. When the game arrived in Italy, it shared ...
, has the ace between the ten and the jack. The earliest known game in which the ace is the highest card of its suit is
Trappola Trappola is an early 16th-century Venetian trick-taking card game which spread to most parts of Central Europe and survived, in various forms and under various names like Trapulka, Bulka and Hundertspiel until perhaps the middle of the 20th centu ...
. In
Ace-Ten games An Ace-Ten game is a type of card game, highly popular in Europe, in which the Aces and Tens are of particularly high value. Description Many of Europe's most popular card games feature the Ace-Ten scoring system, where the cards count as Ace = ...
like
Brusquembille Brusquembille or BriscambilleTrömer, Jean Chretien (1755). ''Jean Chretien Toucement des Deutsch Franços Schrifften''. Vol. 2. expanded. Nuremberg: Raspe. pp. 285 – 286. is an historical, French, 3-card trick-and-draw game for two to five play ...
,
Pinochle Pinochle (), also called pinocle or penuchle, is a trick-taking, Ace-Ten card game typically for two to four players and played with a 48-card deck. It is derived from the card game bezique; players score points by trick-taking and also by form ...
and Sixty-Six, the ace dragged the 10 along with it to the top so the ranking became A-10-K. Some games promoted the deuces and treys too like Put,
Truc Truc, pronounced in France and in Spain, is a 15th-century bluff and counter-bluff trick-taking card game which has been likened to poker for two. It is played in Occitania, Sarthe (where it is known as ''trut''), Poitou (''tru'') and the Basqu ...
, and Tressette. "King high" games were still being made in the 17th century, for example Cribbage. Many games, such as
poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
and
blackjack Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...
, allow the player to choose whether the ace is used as a high or low card. This duality allows players in some other games to use it as both at once; some variants of
Rummy Rummy is a group of matching-card games notable for similar gameplay based on matching cards of the same rank or sequence and same suit. The basic goal in any form of rummy is to build '' melds'' which can be either sets (three or four of a k ...
allow players to form melds, of rank K-A-2 or similar. This is known as "going around the corner". It was not only the French deck which experienced this promotion, but some games involving the
Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...
and
German deck German-suited playing cards are a very common style of traditional playing card used in many parts of Central Europe characterised by 32- or 36-card packs with the suits of Acorns (''Eichel'' or ''Kreuz''), Leaves (''Grün'', ''Blatt'', ''Lau ...
also evolved into using the ''Daus'' (deuce) as the highest card. The ace had disappeared during the 15th century, so the deuce took its place. The ''Ass'' (ace) and ''Daus'' (deuce) were conflated into a single card and the names are used interchangeably along with ''Sau'' (sow) as early cards of that rank depicted a pig. Some decks in southern Germany use "A" for the index because "D" is reserved for ''Dame'' (
Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
) in French-suited decks. Confusion is also avoided as German-suited decks lack numbered cards below "7" or "6". Despite using French-suited cards, Russians call the Ace a Deuce (''tuz''), a vestige of a period when German cards were predominant in central and eastern Europe.


References

{{Playing cards
Ace An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...