Diamonds

is one of the four suits of playing cards 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 ...

. It is the only French suit to not have been adapted from the

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 ...

, taking the place of the suit of Bells Bay schellen

. The original

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

name of the suit is Carreau; in German it is known as Karo. In older German-language accounts of card games, Diamonds are frequently referred to as ''Eckstein'' ("cornerstone"). In

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, the suit is still called ''Egge'' (=''Ecke'' i.e. "corner") today. The term "Karo" went into the German language in the 18th century from the French ''carreau'', which goes back to the Latin word, ''quadrum'', meaning "square" or "rectangle".

Characteristics

The diamond typically has a

lozenge Lozenge or losange may refer to: * Lozenge (shape), a type of rhombus *Throat lozenge, a tablet intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to suppress throat ailments *Lozenge (heraldry), a diamond-shaped object that can be placed on the field of ...

shape, a

parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non- self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of equa ...

with four equal sides, placed on one of its points. The sides are sometimes slightly rounded and the four vertices placed in a square, making the sign look like an astroid. Normally diamonds are

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

in colour. They can however be depicted in

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

, which is the case for example in

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

(where it is one of the two minor suits along with

Clubs Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a ''Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

). In the official Skat tournament deck, diamonds are

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...

or orange, assuming the color of their German-deck equivalent, which are usually

golden Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall *Golden Cap, Dorset *Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershir ...

. The following gallery shows the diamonds from a

52-card deck The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used ...

of French playing cards. Not shown is the Knight of Diamonds used in the

tarot card games Tarot games are card games played with tarot decks, that is, decks with numbered permanent trumps parallel to the suit cards. The games and decks which English-speakers call by the French name Tarot are called Tarocchi in the original Italian, ...

: File:01 of diamonds A.svg,

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 ...

File:02 of diamonds.svg, 2 File:03 of diamonds.svg, 3 File:04 of diamonds.svg, 4 File:05 of diamonds.svg, 5 File:06 of diamonds.svg, 6 File:07 of diamonds.svg, 7 File:08 of diamonds.svg, 8 File:09 of diamonds.svg, 9 File:10 of diamonds - David Bellot.svg, 10 File:Jack of diamonds fr.svg, Jack File:Queen of diamonds fr.svg,

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 ...

File:King of diamonds fr.svg,

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

Four-colour packs

Four-colour packs are sometimes used in tournaments or online. In such packs Diamonds may be: * orange SuitDiamonds4colors

in English and German packs * yellow SuitDiamondsyellow

in American decks and German Skat tournament packs''Gallery 3 - Sizes, Shapes and Colours''
at a_pollett.tripod.com. Retrieved 4 Aug 2020. or * blue Suitdiamondsblue

in English and American Poker decks,
at pokernews.com. Retrieved 4 August 2020. French and Swiss four-colour packs.

Coding

The symbol ♦ is already in the

CP437 Code page 437 (CCSID 437) is the character set of the original IBM PC (personal computer). It is also known as CP437, OEM-US, OEM 437, PC-8, or DOS Latin US. The set includes all printable ASCII characters as well as some accented letters (diacr ...

and therefore also part of Windows

WGL4 Windows Glyph List 4, or more commonly WGL4 for short, also known as the ''Pan-European character set'', is a character repertoire on Microsoft operating systems comprising 657 Unicode characters, two of them private use. Its purpose is to provide ...

. In

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

Characteristics

Four-colour packs

Coding

References

Literature

External links