fan-tan

[ fan-tan ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

Also fan tan. Also called parliament, Cards. a game in which the players play their sevens and other cards forming sequences in the same suits as their sevens, the winner being the player who first runs out of cards.
a Chinese gambling game in which a pile of coins, counters, or objects is placed under a bowl and bets are made on what the remainder will be after they have been counted off in fours.

fan-tan

a Chinese gambling game in which a random number of counters are placed under a bowl and wagers laid on how many will remain after they have been divided by four
a card game played in sequence, the winner being the first to use up all his or her cards

Origin of fan-tan¹

First recorded in 1875–80; from Chinese fān tān literally “repeated divisions”

Origin of fan-tan¹

C19: from Chinese (Cantonese) fan t'an repeated divisions, from fan times + t'an division

He had just learned to play fan-tan with much the same skill he was wont to display at poker in more familiar climes.

Taking your daughter into that nasty mess of Chinamen in the steerage, for instance, to watch them play fan-tan.

There, from a small quadrangular gallery, he could look down on the “well” of the fan-tan lay out below.

Here cards are generally used instead of dice to separate the players from their money, fan-tan being the favorite game.

I could not manage to make out exactly from the description what the game they play is like, but it was not fan-tan.

April 23, 2024inveterate

[in-vet-er-it ]

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