canasta
Americannoun
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canastas
plural
noun
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a card game for two to six players who seek to amass points by declaring sets of cards
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Also called: meld. a declared set in this game, containing seven or more like cards, worth 500 points if the canasta is pure or 300 if wild (containing up to three jokers)
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of canasta
1945–50; < Spanish: literally, basket, apparently variant of canastro < Greek kánastron wicker basket ( see canister)
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Now 102, Rita dines with her friends and plays canasta.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
“She doesn’t know us,” said Digna Orozco, who sells pambazos and tacos de canasta on a dirt patch near semi-trailer truck lots in Fontana.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2024
“Coates had those steely blue eyes, and after the canasta comeback, he threw the cards out the window. He was kind of an out-of-control guy.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 20, 2022
Then she would play mah-jongg and canasta, while he played tennis and paddleball and, afterward, relaxed in front of their cabana.
From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2016
At the next canasta gathering, Mami’s friends all count off the families they know that have left the country.
From "Before We Were Free" by Julia Alvarez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
