Cards and the deck
- Rank
- The identity of a card such as four, ten, jack, queen, king or ace. Rank is separate from suit.
- Suit
- One of the four card families: hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades.
- Hand
- The cards held by a player. Hand size varies by game.
- Deck
- A pack of playing cards. A standard deck has 52 cards before any jokers are added.
Groups and patterns
- Meld
- An accepted combination of cards, typically a set or a sequence. When it can be placed on the table depends on the rules.
- Sequence / run
- Consecutive ranks in the same suit, commonly with at least three cards.
- Set / group
- Cards of the same rank, commonly in different suits.
- Pure sequence
- In variants that use this distinction, a sequence without a joker acting as a substitute.
- Joker / wild card
- A card allowed to represent another card under the selected rules. A printed joker and a designated wild rank are not always treated identically.
Piles and actions
- Stock
- The face-down pile from which players draw cards.
- Discard pile
- The face-up pile of cards discarded during play.
- Draw
- Take a card from an allowed source at the relevant point in a turn.
- Discard
- Place a card on the discard pile.
- Lay off
- In some variants, add a suitable card to an existing meld on the table.
- Declaration
- In formats that use it, a claim that a hand meets the completion requirements. A declaration still needs to satisfy the selected rules.