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Whist   Listen
noun
Whist  n.  A certain game at cards; so called because it requires silence and close attention. It is played by four persons (those who sit opposite each other being partners) with a complete pack of fifty-two cards. Each player has thirteen cards, and when these are played out, the hand is finished, and the cards are again shuffled and distributed. Note: Points are scored for the tricks taken in excess of six, and for the honors held. In long whist, now seldom played, ten points make the game; in short whist, now usually played in England, five points make the game. In American whist, so-called, honors are not counted, and seven points by tricks make the game.
Bridge whist. See Bridge, n., above.
Duplicate whist, a form of whist in playing which the hands are preserved as dealt and played again by other players, as when each side holds in the second round the cards played by the opposing side in the first round.
Solo whist. See Solo whist, above.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whist" Quotes from Famous Books



... to one of his clubs, intending to dine. Nobody was there except some old fogies playing whist who spoke to him with grave politeness and glared at him with savage contempt. Everybody was out of town. But here he was kept in like a schoolboy to write his name over and over on pieces of paper. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... relations were more or less disturbed, for it particularly grieved me to hear Minna's talents and mental gifts criticised by the other. One evening I had promised Minna to have tea with her and Mme. Haas, but I had thoughtlessly promised to go to a whist party first. This engagement I purposely prolonged, much as it wearied me, in the deliberate hope that her companion—who had already grown irksome to me—might have left before my arrival. The only way in which I could do this was by drinking hard, so that I ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... which you said 'comfortable establishment!' the most conventional match-making in existence could not have done it better; and as for what has been said, there has nothing been said but what is said about everybody—what, probably, would be said of you yourself, John, for you play whist sometimes, I hear, and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... reproach" was preserved even in the recumbent attitude, the more so as that was quite sufficient for the province. You should have seen him at our club when he sat down to cards. His whole figure seemed to exclaim "Cards! Me sit down to whist with you! Is it consistent? Who is responsible for it? Who has shattered my energies and turned them to whist? Ah, perish, Russia!" and he would majestically trump ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... sportswoman and a good sort. By the time that Arthur Payne arrived the days were drawing in, and she saw very little of them, except in the evenings, after dinner, when she and Considine would join them in a game of snooker in the billiard-room, or take a hand of whist, old-fashioned whist, ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... all talk stocks and money!" said a gentleman just arrived from a ten years' sojourn in Europe. "When I went away you were talking of books, of art, of social ethics, of fine women, of good dinners, of whist and bezique: now you are all talking of longs and shorts, bulls and bears, a fraction of per cent., etc. etc.—all of you, men, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... the favor of Captain Bones, who had a weakness for punch and whist. Terrence knew how to brew the punch to the taste of the captain, and could play whist so artistically, that the captain could, by the hardest sort of ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... he remarked to Lord Southend as they were sitting down to whist, "but, really, don't you think the ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... unto these yellow sands, 375 And then take hands: Courtsied when you have and kiss'd The wild waves whist: Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... "Talleyrand was playing whist in the salon of Madame de Luynes," said a personage who had been listening attentively to de Marsay's narrative. "It was about three o'clock in the morning, when he pulled out his watch, looked at it, stopped the game, and asked his ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... doubt I doubt, he'll give ye all ye deserve. Come by. There's kindlin' to split an' praties to peel, an'—Whist! What's that I hear?" ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... famous Mrs. Siddons, in "Blowing up the Pic Nics." To the same class and subject of satire belongs the "Pic Nic Orchestra" and "Dilettante Theatre"—this last a Green-room scene which seems reminiscent of Hogarth's print of a similar subject. "Two-penny Whist" and "Push-pin" are filled with contemporary portraits;[11] and the two series of "Cockney Sportsmen" (4 plates, 1800) and "Elements of Skating" (4 plates, 1805) must not be overlooked any more than such weirdly hideous creations as "Comfort to the Corns," ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton

... "Whist, mother," said John, looking back at her from the tail of his eye, "I go to France as an archer to give blows ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... played the piano, and sang and danced and acted a gypsy encampment. Nirmatsky was dressed up as a bear, and made to drink salt water. Count Malevsky showed us several sorts of card tricks, and finished, after shuffling the cards, by dealing himself all the trumps at whist, on which Lushin 'had the honour of congratulating him.' Meidanov recited portions from his poem 'The Manslayer' (romanticism was at its height at this period), which he intended to bring out in a black cover with the title in blood-red ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... 'My goodness me, Amy,' returned Fanny, 'is she the sort of woman to say anything? Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do at present but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on, and go sweeping about? Say anything! If she had the ace of trumps in her hand at whist, she wouldn't say anything, child. It would come ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... carry me!" he told them. "If you think this is a pleasant little game of parlor whist and that you can quit and go home whenever you want, you're plumb wrong. Look here, Watkins, you remarked five minutes ago that you wouldn't stand for it. Now let me tell you a few. You're going to stand ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... getting right up in society. A duel's more etiquettish than bridge-whist, Steve. Ain't you honored, being invited to one. You're to ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... early for me to go to bed, and I knew the pater would have turned in before I got back. I sauntered down two streets, and then drove to the Club. In the card-room I found Dick and two other fellows, one of whom was a stranger to me. As I made the convenient fourth, we played a rubber at whist. After this it seemed generally voted that the weather was too fatiguing for the strain of whist, and an adjournment was made to an open window, chairs, and drinks. I was preoccupied with my own ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... do you say to a quiet little dinner here?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you know, and a bottle of good wine. Only our three selves, and one old friend of mine to make up four. We will have a rubber of whist in the evening. Mary and you partners—eh? When shall it be? Shall we say the day ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... writing it so. A brave and self-confident, but rancorous old man, Jacob by his senseless regulations brought the Indian army to the verge of ruin. This peccadillo was passed over, but a more serious offence, his inability to play whist, was remembered against him by his brother officers right to the day of his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... "'By the back door—whist!' says I. ''Twas a glorious blow for liberty we struck,' I continues; 'but we was overpowered by numbers. Let us accept our defeat like brave ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... is it! I can hear every whisper in this parish and the seven parishes are nearest. And the little midges roaring in the air.—Let ye whist now with your sneezing ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory

... or two in approaching Kate. "Whist, man!" he whispered. "Tell the old geezer I'll be going to chapel reglar early tides and late shifts, and Sunday-school constant. And, whist! tell him I'm larning myself to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... range fairly sizzle and parboil and shrivel up. There was no give in Doc; no compromises with creditors; no fire sales. He wasn't one of those elders who would let a fellow dance the lancers if he'd swear off on waltzing; or tell him it was all right to play whist in the parlor if he'd give up penny-ante at the Dutchman's; or wink at his smoking if he'd ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... here evidence of the difference between the Calvinism of Switzerland and the Calvinism of America. I was brought up in that faith. I went to meeting in the morning, I danced with the parson's daughter on the green in the afternoon, and I played whist with ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks

... breakfast. And he could walk home from his chambers every day, and on Sundays could do the round of the parks on foot. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he dined at that old law club, the Eldon, and played whist after dinner till twelve o'clock. This was the great dissipation and, I think, the chief charm of his life. In the middle of August he and his daughter usually went for a month to Wharton Hall in Herefordshire, the seat ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... military to preserve order and restrain the violence of the people. Marshal Marmont, with only twelve thousand troops, was powerless against a great city in arms. The king thinking it was only an emeute, to be easily put down, withdrew to St. Cloud; and there he spent his time in playing whist, as Nero fiddled over burning Rome, until at last aroused by the vengeance of the whole nation, he made his escape to England, to rust in the old palace of the kings of Scotland, and to meditate over his kingly follies, as Napoleon meditated over his mistakes in the island ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... A pair of whist-tables were now started for the elders, while the three girls and the two Oxonians still clustered round the piano, and seemed to find plenty to talk about till sweetly and suddenly upon the still night air came the silver tones ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... all were charmed with him; and that even Captain Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time. The Doctor did not play—he thus became the property of the two ladies, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... as we had similar plans, a common destination, and the same pleasures in anticipation, we readily made friendships. We chatted around the table during the luncheon and dinner hours, took a hand in euchre with men in the smoking room, or a place at whist with the ladies in the music room, and exchanged pleasantries and experiences with our neighbors while occupying the steamer chairs. Friendships grew rapidly under these favorable conditions. Sometimes chats with new acquaintances which began in a mirthful way changed ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... replied, without looking up from his order book, which was overflowing with requisitions for spring garments. "I bet yer, Mawruss! You take my Rosie for instance: at her age you got no idee what a sport she is. Yesterday afternoon she went to a bridge-whist party by Mrs. Koblin's and she won a sterling solid-silver fern dish. And mind you, Mawruss, she only just found out how ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... successors. On the other hand, he had never got into the ways of the old-fogy set. Those stout old gentlemen who carefully drank nothing but claret and seltzer, who took a quarter of an hour to write out their dinner-bill, who spent the evening in playing whist, kept very much to themselves. It was into this set that the old general now introduced him. Mr. Roscorla had quite the air of a bashful young man when he made one of a party of those ancients, who dined at the same table each evening. He was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... kind o' business with it. I'm going to sell it, first chance; mind, you don't cut up none o' yer shines about it, or I'll make ye wish ye'd never been born.' I tell ye, they sees it an't no play, when I gets hold. I makes 'em as whist as fishes; and if one on 'em begins and gives a yelp, why,—" and Mr. Loker brought down his fist with a thump that fully ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... are of all sorts, from the conversazioni of the rigid proprietarians, where people sit down to a kind of hopeless whist, at a soldo the point, and say nothing, to the conversazioni of the demi- monde where they say any thing. There are persons in Venice, as well as everywhere else, of new-fashioned modes of thinking, and these strive to give a greater life and ease to ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... know. A man who sits down to whist may have a run of ill-luck before he gets a decent hand; but the good cards are sure to come if he only sits long enough. Every man has his chance, depend upon it, Phil, if he knows how to watch for it; but there are so ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... Worship Gipsy Insane Encourage Clerk Disease Astonish Clergyman Boulevard Realize Hectoring Canary Bombast Primrose Diamond Benedict Walnut Abominate Piazza Holiday Barbarous Disgust Heavy Kind Virtu Nightmare Devil Gospel Comfort Whist Mermaid Pearl Onion Enthusiasm Domino Book Fanatic Grotesque Cheat Auction Economy Illegible Quell Cheap Illegitimate Sheriff Excelsior Emasculate Danger Dunce Champion Shibboleth Calico Adieu Essay Pontiff Macadamize Wages Copy Stentorian ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... "Whist, now, sergeant laddies!" he exclaimed. "Look into the wather! It's aloive with wigglers of ivery variety. They're 's plinty as pays in ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis

... the guests to seek shelter within doors, the great parlor affords to the young people ample room for the cotillion or German, while the reception-room, office, and reading-room lure the seniors to whist or magazines. Of a Sunday, the dining-room answers for a chapel; and in years past, the voice of many an eloquent preacher has echoed through the room, and reached, through the open windows, hardy but devout fishermen ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... if these two young folk had any regard for each other, those evenings in the inn must have been a pleasant time for them. There were never two partners at whist who were so courteous to each other, so charitable to each other's blunders. Indeed, neither would ever admit that the other blundered. Charlie used to make some frightful mistakes occasionally that would have driven any other player ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... been at the Melmottes' to-day?' It was now five o'clock on a winter afternoon, the hour at which ladies are drinking tea, and idle men playing whist at the clubs,—at which young idle men are sometimes allowed to flirt, and at which, as Lady Carbury thought, her son might have been paying his court to Marie ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... I git on all right together without talkin', and if she's got anything to say to me that I can understand she'll say it right to me, and not to somebody she's never seen or heard of. No, ma'am,' I says, 'I know Susie better 'n you do!' So since then I've kep' pretty whist about Susie; but she's a mighty comfort to me every day o' ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... None should attempt to play—whist, for instance—unless really able to do so moderately well. It is not fair to impose a poor partner upon one who may be really fond of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... by midnight had passed through the narrow channel which divides the Falkland Islands from the mainland at Cape Grafton. We ladies retired early to bed, and even the children acknowledged to being tired; but the gentlemen played whist on deck till a much later hour. The nights are perfect now. The breeze is rather fresh by day when not under the shelter of a protecting coast; but one must remember that if the wind be fresh it is wafting us speedily on our way, and we must not grumble, for we have turned the ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... myself after dinner. It is the only time when I can properly appreciate love-stories. Then, when the hero clasps "her" to his heart in one last wild embrace and stifles a sob, I feel as sad as though I had dealt at whist and turned up only a deuce; and when the heroine dies in the end I weep. If I read the same tale early in the morning I should sneer at it. Digestion, or rather indigestion, has a marvelous effect upon the heart. ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... of the elder guests sat down to a game of whist, the younger ones danced Money Musk, Squire Beverly and Mrs. Stephen Hatton leading, while Harry played the old country dance with a snap and movement that made hearts bound and feet forget that age or ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... "Whist is to be done with this other prisoner, your highness?" inquired the duke, making a poke with his forefinger at Sir Norman. "Is he to stay here, or ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... made the sages smile, Tis something, nothing, words, illusion, wind— Depending more upon the historian's style Than on the name a person leaves behind. Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle The present century was growing blind To the great Marlborough's skill in giving knocks, Until his late Life ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... father sent her another kind. He said it wasn't quite so good as the smelly sort, but her ankle is a whole lot better. Don't you think she is brave? I don't know what Miss Sniffen would say if she knew about that. We've all kept whist. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd

... literally, sweet honor. At Williams College a name given by a certain class of students to the game of whist; the reason for which is evident. Whether Maecenas would have considered it an honor to have had the compliment of Horace, "O et praesidium et dulce decus meum," transferred as a title for a game at cards, we ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... and intellectual game. The ethical distinctions are positively bewildering between balls of ivory and balls of wood; between mallets and cues; between green baize and green grass. A Christian household must not sit down and play at whist, but they are engaged in a Christian and laudable manner if they spend an evening over Dr. Busby, or Master Rodbury cards. Really, it is hard to draw the moral line between cards bearing aces and spades, and cards with the likenesses of Dr. Busby's son and servant, Doll the dairymaid, and ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... answers.; crisscross, hopscotch; jacks, jackstones[obs3], marbles; mumblety-peg, mumble-the-peg, pushball, shinney, shinny, tag &c. billiards, pool, pingpong, pyramids, bagatelle; bowls, skittles, ninepins, kain[obs3], American bowls[obs3]; tenpins [U.S.], tivoli. cards, card games; whist, rubber; round game; loo, cribbage, besique[obs3], euchre, drole[obs3], ecarte[Fr], picquet[obs3], allfours[obs3], quadrille, omber, reverse, Pope Joan, commit; boston, boaston[obs3]; blackjack, twenty-one, vingtun[Fr]; quinze[Fr], thirty-one, put, speculation, connections, brag, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... has inherited the fine old superstition that art's pardonable only so long as it's bad—so long as it's done at odd hours, for a little distraction, like a game of tennis or of whist. The only thing that can justify it, the effort to carry it as far as one can (which you can't do without time and singleness of purpose), she regards as just the dangerous, the criminal element. It's the oddest hind-part-before view, the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... which there is play and the reading of the memoirs of Mme. de Maintenon." Ordinarily "the company remains together until two o'clock in the morning." Intellectual freedom is complete. There is no confusion, no anxiety. They play whist and tric-trac in the afternoon and faro in the evening. "They do to day what they did yesterday and what they will do to-morrow; the dinner-supper is to them the most important affair in life, and their only complaint in the world is of their digestion. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a wise man, when your nose is in the cup. But soft, who comes here? step we close aside, for these be the three ladies, for my life, brought out of prison by their keeper. Let us be whist, and we shall hear and see all. Sirrah, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... here now," cried Lady Dacre, "or perhaps I ought not to say two persons, but one and his shadow. People call him a reckless sort of a fellow—the man, not the shadow,—but I think him charming. It is Mr. Edmonson, the best whist player I ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... circumstance, occurred to confirm Mr. Oldbuck's supposition; and it remained a high and doubtful question, what a well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment of any kind, could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort which had been lately embodied, and shunned joining the convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they did ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... much under L6000. Major Scott, from all I have heard, was {p.100} a sober, sedate bachelor, of dull mind and frugal tastes, who, after his retirement from the army, divided his time between his mother's primitive fireside, and the society of a few whist-playing brother officers, that met for an evening rubber at Fortune's tavern. But, making every allowance for his retired and thrifty habits, I infer that the payments made to each of the three brothers out of their father's estate must have, prior to 1816, amounted to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... Baron, seeing his brother, his son, the Baroness, and Hortense all engaged at whist, went off to applaud his mistress at the Opera, taking with him Lisbeth Fischer, who lived in the Rue du Doyenne, and who always made an excuse of the solitude of that deserted quarter to take herself off as soon as dinner was ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... Nucingen, Peyrade, and Rastignac sat down to a whist-table; Florine, Madame du Val-Noble, Esther, Blondet, and Bixiou sat round the fire chatting. Lucien spent the time in looking through a book ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... about to spake the same. Do yees tarry here while I takes a look around. Whist! now, and kaap so still that ye'll hear me brathe all the ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... general, was considered to be a pleasant fellow as well as a cautious man of business. He was good at a dinner-table, serviceable with a gun, and always happy on horseback. He could catch a fish, and was known to be partial to a rubber at whist. He certainly was not regarded as a hard or cruel man. But Cousin Henry, in looking at him, had always seen a sternness in his eye, some curve of a frown upon his brow, which had been uncomfortable ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope

... marriage-feast, into a chaos of splinters, tablecloth, and knives and forks. The Restauration Kueche on the other side was in flames, so was the stable of the hotel to the left rear. In this pleasing situation of affairs George produced a pack of cards and coolly proposed a game of whist. Kuester, de Liefde, and Hyndman joined him; and the game proceeded amidst the crashing of the projectiles. Silberer and myself took counsel together and agreed that the occupation of the town by the French was only a question of a few hours at latest. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... he soon became aware that his uncle appeared to take no great interest in him, and, too, the boy's long cultivated though lessening reserve kept them apart. Meanwhile, Ann watched with pleasure his gain in independence, in looks and in appetite. While James Penhallow after his game of whist at night growled in his den over the bitter politics of the day, North and South, his wife read aloud to the children by the fireside in her own small sitting-room or answered as best she could John's questions, confessing ignorance ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... for an entertainment he proposed to give that evening. This was easily secured, and a goodly sum was raised by dollar tickets. The sleight-of-hand was excellent. But the special performance of the evening deserves description in full. It was that of a whist-playing dog. Three passengers - one of us taking a hand - played as in dummy whist, dummy's hand being spread in a long row upon the deck of the saloon cabin. The conjuror, as did the other passengers, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... adult? And, if an adult, and that you gave a ball to the Solar System, is she that kind of person, that you would introduce to a waltzing partner, some fiery young gentlemen like Mars, or would you rather suggest to her the sort of partnership which takes place at a whist-table? On this, as on so many other questions, Kant was perfectly sensible that people, of the finest understandings, may and do take the most opposite views. Some think that our planet is in that stage of her life, which corresponds to the playful period ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... composed the whole apartment. At twelve o'clock tea was served, with eternally the same cakes, over which a pupil of Gerard's, Mlle. Godefroy, presided. Gerard himself talked; his wife remained nailed to a whist-table, attending to nothing and to nobody. Evening once closed in, cards were the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... the expression of a deep-seated sense of injury. He felt that he had always been misunderstood and underestimated. Later after he went into business for himself, the young men of Frankfort had never urged him to take part in their pleasures. He had not been asked to join the tennis club or the whist club. He envied Claude his fine physique and his unreckoning, impulsive vitality, as if they had been given to his brother by unfair means and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... camp," said an elderly Major recalled from the whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, "they went into camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred and ten fever cases only, and the balance looking like so many ghosts with sore eyes. A Madras Regiment could have walked ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling

... not much to be pitied. He had still an estate which, with due care, could pay off its incumbrances; and he had gathered some valuable knowledge. He knew women better than most men, and he knew whist profoundly. Above all, he had acquired what Voltaire justly calls "le grand art de plaire;" he had studied this art, as many women study it, and few men. Why, he even watched the countenance, and smoothed the rising bristles of those he wished to please, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... labour, but they live.— And some lead "bouledogues" to the water's edge, There hunt, a l'Anglais, rats amidst the sedge; And some to "pedicures" present—their corns, And some at open windows practise—horns! In noisy trictrac, or in quiet whist, These pass their time—and, to complete our list, There are who flirt with milliners or books, Or else with nature ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... all together of an evening, Michael would be more like his old self. He would sit beside the piano when she sang, and turn over the leaves for her, or he would coax her to be his partner in a game of whist, and lecture her in his old fashion; but all the time he would be looking at her so kindly that his lectures never troubled her in ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... four played a game of old-fashioned whist, which delighted the two old ladies, though it seemed strange to Patty and Philip, who were both good bridge players. Then there was more music, and at ten o'clock Miss Winthrop informed them that ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... of housework, sweepin', operatin' the dumb waiter, payin' bills, etc. Some in the settin' room readin' the newspaper. And there is a band of sixty monkey musicians. And I hearn they're learnin' bridge whist; I wuz sorry to hear that, and I sez to the oldest ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... if any pirates attacked you, and were caught, you'd have the satisfaction of having them strung up by King Tom, like those chaps yonder," said Raby. "By the bye, Duff, did you ever observe King Tom's Rubber of Whist?" ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... compare golf with shinny is capable of contrasting Venice with a drainage canal, and I came near telling him so. Golf and shinny! Whist and old ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill, But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill, Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will {417} Who moans unseen, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... most entertaining as well as the most improving play in which women can join. There is also a demand among women who seek an intellectual element in their recreation for instruction in the games of bridge-whist, whist, and chess. Bridge-whist is the most popular, largely because of the desire to win money and valuable prizes at the game. Then, too, a greater amount of time is spent at it than is legitimate for recreation. For moral reasons, therefore, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... Kawiti's new and strongest pa, Rua-peka-peka (the Bat's Nest). Curtained by a double palisade of beams eighteen feet high by two feet thick, strengthened by flanking redoubts, ditches, and traverses, honeycombed with rifle-pits and bomb-proof chambers below ground, "large enough to hold a whist-party," it was a model Maori fortification of the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... bordered with a quaint design. An old-fashioned wooden armchair R. of fireplace. Door up R. Stool by dresser. Chair behind table. As the curtain rises, the stage is quite dark, lit by a faint gleam from fireplace. Mysterious music, which resolves itself into the air of "Whist, whist, whist. Here Comes the Bogie Man." The Brownies heard singing behind the scenes. They dance in one by one mysteriously round stage, in follow-my-leader fashion, over chair and stool, and crawl under table, round and round room ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg

... Highland school. He accepts a distant rural or insular post, marries the girl of his heart, gets settled in the schoolhouse of the glen or township, and rarely moves thence all the succeeding years of his life. He becomes identified with local affairs; plays whist maybe with the doctor, the factor, and the banker; and is apt to magnify the cackle of his bourg into the great Voice that echoes round the world. The monotony of his life is varied by such happenings as a birth or a death ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... and training others for provincial centres. She and her Assistants interview new hands and arrange changes and transfers of women. She enquires into all complaints, advises as to clothing, keeps an eye on the vast canteen organization of Woolwich, and initiates schemes for recreation—notices of whist drives, dances and concerts are constantly up on the boards. The housing of the immigrant workers—no small problem, she and her assistants deal with. They suggest improvements in conditions and are awake to signs of illness or overfatigue. They follow the ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... through the mist, all white and whist, Gaunt ships, with sea-weed wound, With rotting masts, upon whose spars The corposants lit spectre stars, ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... in a melancholy state of disorder. Bills are fastened to-day on the corners of the streets, forbidding all ingress or egress through the military lines, from six in the evening till eight in the morning. Gentlemen who live near us now venture in towards evening, to talk politics or play at whist; but generally, in the middle of a game, some report is brought in, which drives them back to their houses and families with all possible haste. Senor ——-, a young Spaniard who is living with us, returning here late last night, was challenged by the sentinels at the corner of the street, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... it were, the broad and generous policy of his father, Christy had no personal prejudices against this enemy of his country, and he felt just as he would if he had been sailing a boat against him, or playing a game of whist with him. He was determined to beat him if he could. But he was not satisfied with locking his papers up; he called Dave, and set him as a watch over them. If the conspirator overhauled his papers, he would have been more concerned about what he did not find than in relation to what he did find, ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... percheth he With pretty flight, And makes his pillow of my knee The livelong night. Strike I my lute, he tunes the string; He music plays if so I sing; He lends me every lovely thing, Yet cruel he my heart doth sting: Whist, wanton, still ye! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... of reading and music seem to me far better occupations for home evenings than games. There is too much hard work in chess and whist and too little sociability to make them in any way desirable. Euchre and backgammon seem invented to pass away time, which is so precious to most of us that we should like to feel we had something at the end of an ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}

... old folks taking up our residence at Baroona had agreed to make common house of it. We were very dull at first, but I remember many pleasant evenings, when we played whist; and Mary Hawker, in her widow's weeds, sat sewing by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... was lately in company with several ladies at a game of whist, where, having lost two or three rubbers, one of the ladies addressing him, asked, "Pray, sir, what are the stakes now?" To which, ever mindful of his occupation, he immediately replied, "Madam, the best rump I cannot sell lower than tenpence ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... for ever"—a cultivated intellect—in order to amass a fortune that turns to ashes, when he has time to ask of it any of the pleasures and resources he fondly imagined it would afford him. Like Talleyrand's young man who would not learn whist, he finds that he has prepared for ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... little maid answered with decision, "the contrary wind be God's wind. 'Twas whist poor speed the fishers were once making—toiling and rowing—and the wind contrary, when He came walking on the water and into the boat, and then, to be sure, all was ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... was utterly unable to account. With a hazy idea that something had passed which he had not heard, he caused a diversion by sending Mrs. Church indoors for a pack of cards, and solemnly celebrated the occasion with a game of whist, at which Mrs. Church, in partnership with Mrs. Banks, either through sheer wilfulness or absence of mind, contrived to ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... and plunged into a furious round of dissipations, of which gambling now formed the chief. Dawn after dawn saw him leaving the green tables of either the "Nobility" or the Yacht clubs; and, as if to applaud his defection, fate decreed that Ivan could not lose. Baccarat, roulette, piquet, even whist,—Ivan won at them all, till one drawer in his escritoire was stuffed full of lightly ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... "Damnation! It's a hell of a country, and myself was the benighted fool ever to come near it at all. Whist to it now! Anyone would think the devil himself ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... lives. Some amusements which may in themselves be but little valued are wisely cultivated as helping men to move more easily in different spheres of society, or as providing a resource for old age. Talleyrand was not wholly wrong in his reproach to a man who had never learned to play whist: 'What an unhappy old age you ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... able to deposit his bulky, military person rather stiffly on a cushioned seat, and to remove his immaculate silk hat, with an expression of weary satisfaction. He had devoted all the sunny spring afternoon, (when he might have been at Hurlingham, or playing whist at the "Rag"), to making his way, laboriously and apologetically, from room to room in search of friends and acquaintances, whom, when found, he would convoy strategically into the immediate vicinity of No. 37 in the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... bed, found a box of bonbons that her mother had won as a prize in an afternoon whist party the day before, and crept back into bed. When she had eaten nearly all of the candy, she sat up and in the softly shaded light, looked at the box with its few remaining bits of candy. She was wondering where she ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks

... place in the scale of rank had not been distinctly ascertained. There was no doubt about drapers and grocers, when they came of good old Grimworth families, like Mr. Luff and Mr. Prettyman: they visited with the Palfreys, who farmed their own land, played many a game at whist with the doctor, and condescended a little towards the timber-merchant, who had lately taken to the coal-trade also, and had got new furniture; but whether a confectioner should be admitted to this higher level of respectability, or should be understood to find ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot

... number were seated around in groups, within hearing of the speaker, but paying very little attention to what he was saying. A few were whittling, a few pitching quoits, or playing leap-frog, and quite a number were having a quiet game of whist, euchre, or 'seven-up.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... for Cooke, after having so frequently disappointed full houses, to be obliged to play to an empty theatre. It was like playing whist with dummy. However, towards the close of the O. P. war, (which, by the way, excited more the attention of the Parisians than the national contest in which we were engaged,) the public had adopted the plan of never commencing operations ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various

... O'Leary. She led them all a pretty dance, and when her affairs were so complicated that a lawyer couldn't straighten them out, whist! ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... playing on a breeze-fanned veranda that overlooked the terrace and harbour, and proved a tolerably apt pupil. A very little practice evoked helpful memories of whist-lore that she had thought completely atrophied by long disuse, and she was aided besides by a strong infusion in her mentality of that mysterious faculty we call card-sense. Before the end of the second rubber she was playing a game that won the outspoken ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... been downstairs just now, Mr. Weinhold. You'd have gained a little experience. Besides.... But now let us have our game of whist. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... Committee appointed to present the Petition to the Councilmen? That's what I was! For Six Years I have been a Member of the League of American Wheelmen and now I am a Candidate for Director of our new four-hole Golf Club. Also I play Whist on the Train with a Man who once lived in the same ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade

... for giving so much of her time to Church work, and said that she should go with him to dances and whist parties. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... "Hold your whist," said Shawn fiercely to them. "He can't answer the lot of you, can he?" and he turned again to the Leprecaun and shook him until his ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens



Words linked to "Whist" :   whist drive, bridge whist, long whist, short whist, cards, card game



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