Word of the Day

: January 19, 2010

conquian

noun KONK-ee-un

What It Means

: a card game for two played with 40 cards from which all games of rummy developed

conquian in Context

The two friends whiled away the long summer days with endless games of conquian.

Did You Know?

Conquian is a very old card game, played more frequently in the past than now. Based on the "draw and discard" principle that forms the basis for all modern games of rummy, it's played with 40 cards of a 52-card deck. (The most common variations involve the removal of either all face cards, or the tens, nines, and eights.) The goal of the game is to form three or four of a kind, or sequences. "Conquian" comes to us from Mexican Spanish, but the word is ultimately derived from the Spanish "¿con quién?" meaning "with whom?"