solitaire
[sol-i-tair]
- Also called patience. any of various games played by one person with one or more regular 52-card packs, part or all of which are usually dealt out according to a given pattern, the object being to arrange the cards in a predetermined manner.
- a game played by one person alone, as a game played with marbles or pegs on a board having hollows or holes.
- a precious stone, especially a diamond, set by itself, as in a ring.
- any of several American thrushes of the genus Myadestes, having short, broad bills and noted for their beautiful songs.
- a large extinct flightless bird of the genus Pezophaps, related to the dodo but with a longer neck, smaller bill, and longer legs, that inhabited the Mascarene Islands.
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Origin of solitaire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for solitaire
Contemporary Examples
It even threatens such veteran horizontally integrated favorites as Scrabble, solitaire, and the crossword puzzle.
Historical Examples
So I take it there's been something doin' in the solitaire and wilt-thou line.
Torchy, Private Sec.Sewell Ford
I might have known better, too; spillin' all that dope about the solitaire.
Torchy and VeeSewell Ford
She played the game alone with a little assistance from Emma—a game of solitaire.
Hester's CounterpartJean K. Baird
It is a game of chess, and not of solitaire, nor even of checkers.
Over the TeacupsOliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Of all the birds on the Rockies, the one most marvelously eloquent is the solitaire.
Wild Life on the RockiesEnos A. Mills
solitaire
- Also called: pegboard a game played by one person, esp one involving moving and taking pegs in a pegboard or marbles on an indented circular board with the object of being left with only one
- the US name for patience (def. 3)
- a gem, esp a diamond, set alone in a ring
- any of several extinct birds of the genus Pezophaps, related to the dodo
- any of several dull grey North American songbirds of the genus Myadestes: subfamily Turdinae (thrushes)
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Word Origin
C18: from Old French: solitary
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for solitaire
n.
c.1500, "widow;" 1716, "solitary person, recluse," from French solitaire, from Latin adjective solitarius "alone, lonely, isolated" (see solitary). Sense of "a precious stone set by itself" is from 1727. Meaning "card game played by one person" is first attested 1746.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper