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
: 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
Amazon Prime will get a wild card playoff game, the one that Peacock had last season, as well as Thursday games and another Black Friday game.
—
Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 14 May 2024
Trump's legal team reportedly plotting extended tactics to dismantle prosecution's wild card witness.
—Fox News, 9 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for wild card 
Barry Jackson, Miami Herald, 14 May 2024
Trump's legal team reportedly plotting extended tactics to dismantle prosecution's wild card witness.
—Fox News, 9 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for wild card
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wild card.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Wild card.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wild%20card. Accessed 20 May. 2024.
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