wild card

noun

1

: an unknown or unpredictable factor

2

: one picked to fill a leftover playoff or tournament berth after regularly qualifying competitors have all been determined

3

usually wildcard

ˈwī(-ə)l(d)-ˌkärd 

: a symbol (such as ? or *) used in a keyword database search to represent the presence of zero, one, or more than one unspecified characters

Examples of wild card in a Sentence

The joker is a wild card.

Taxes are the wild card in this election.

The team made it into the play-offs as the wild card.

Recent Examples on the Web

The receivers are a group to watch, but there aren’t enough wild cards in that group to single-handedly push the defenders down. —Nick Harris, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 Apr. 2026

Sowah, 25, could be a wild card in this position battle. —Nathan Canilao, Mercury News, 19 Apr. 2026

The Kings clinch a playoff berth as the Western Conference’s second wild card and will face regular-season champion Colorado in the first round, with Game 1 on Sunday in Denver. —Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2026

On top of everything else pummeling consumers right now — spiking gas prices, soaring grocery bills, an uncertain job market — there’s a wild card lurking in a shadowy corner of corporate finance that could pile on even more pain. —Allison Morrow, CNN Money, 16 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

wild card, playing card with arbitrarily determined value

First Known Use

1971, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for wild card

• asgard
• backyard
• barnyard
• blackguard
• bombard
• brickyard
• canard
• churchyard
• coastguard
• courtyard
• debarred
• diehard