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canasta
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
canasta
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ When they got back, having discovered only two, Mary Ann had the cards out for a game of canasta.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
canasta

canasta \canasta\ n. a form of rummy using two decks and four jokers; jokers and deuces are wild; the object is to meld groups of seven of the same rank.

Syn: basket rummy, meld.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
canasta

1948, Uruguayan card game played with two decks and four jokers, popular c.1945-1965; from Spanish, literally "basket," from Latin canistrum (see cannister); perhaps in reference to the "packs" of cards used.

Wiktionary
canasta

n. 1 (context uncountable games card games English) A card game similar to rummy and played using two packs, where the object is to meld groups of the same rank. 2 (context countable card games English) A meld of seven cards in a game of '''canasta'''.

WordNet
canasta

n. a form of rummy using two decks and four jokers; jokers and deuces are wild; the object is to meld groups of seven of the same rank [syn: basket rummy, meld]

Wikipedia
Canasta

Canasta (; Spanish for "basket") is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 Rum. Although many variations exist for two, three, five or six players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of seven cards of the same rank and "go out" by playing all cards in their hand. It is the only partnership member of the family of Rummy games to achieve the status of a classic.

The game of Canasta was devised by Segundo Santos and Alberto Serrato in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1939. In the 1940s the game quickly spread in myriad variations to Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, where its rules were further refined before being introduced to the United States in 1948, where it was then referred to as the Argentine Rummy game by Ottilie H. Reilly in 1949 and Michael Scully of Coronet magazine in 1953. The game quickly became a card-craze boom in the 1950s providing a sales avalanche of card sets, card trays and books about the subject.

Canasta (band)

Canasta is a Chicago, Illinois-based chamber pop sextet. Their most recent full-length album, The Fakeout, the Tease and the Breather, was released in May 2010 on the label RWIM Chicago. Prior releases include one EP, Find the Time, one full-length CD, We Were Set Up, and one remix album, We Were Mixed Up. Their song, "Slow Down Chicago", was used in the trailer for the film Diminished Capacity.

Usage examples of "canasta".

Certain nights of the week, we play honeymoon bridge or canasta or Scrabble.

If it rained they would huddle under the fading canopy and play bridge and canasta and gin, keeping scored into the hundreds of thousands even though they were sick of cards.

Now here was this new girl not any older than Marva but her husband was what they called a career man, she probably believed in all that junk the old ladies believed in, so she could learn to play canasta and go to hell.

As a result, he talks to no one, except the canasta players, who are no keener of wit than he.

They taught Hopie how to play partnership canasta, and she and Hope tromped Megan and Spirit.

As if Goldfinger knew the danger he was in, he went down for fifty and proceeded to make a canasta with three wild cards and four fives.

Her mother and brother said 76 GENEROUS DEATH they'd played canasta until midnight.

A few people would die, a few people would get married, they might change over from bridge to canasta or back again, the man next door might run off with his wife's sister and the grocer's assistant might run off with the tillthat's all.

Mustering all her hostess skills, Agnes gradually turned the conversation from disastrous explosions to Fourth of July fireworks, and then to reminiscences of summer evenings when she, Joey, Edom, and Jacob had played cards-pinochle, canasta, bridge-at a table in the backyard.

If anything could finish Pan off, it was the vibration of all those self-righteous Eisenhower puritans shuffling canasta decks and defense contracts.

The table, at which innumerable widows had sat down to canasta, shuddered paroxysmally, causing beakers of chemicals to rattle and sway.