Euchre Terms
Euchre has more slang per card than any other game in the deck. Here is all of it.
Play Euchre freeEuchre is a small game with an enormous vocabulary — a legacy of two centuries in Midwestern kitchens and Cornish pubs. New players are rarely confused by the rules; they are confused by being told to "order it up" or warned that they are "going to get euchred". This is the whole vocabulary, in plain English.
The cards
- Bower
- A jack that has become a trump. From the German Bauer, farmer — the same root as the "boy" on old jacks. There are exactly two in every hand.
- Right bower
- The jack of the trump suit. The highest card in the game, always.
- Left bower
- The other jack of the same colour. It becomes a trump for the hand and ranks second, immediately below the right bower. If hearts are trump, the J♦ is a heart — it is no longer a diamond in any sense, and you cannot follow a diamond lead with it.
- Trump ranking
- Right bower, left bower, A, K, Q, 10, 9. Note there is no jack in the middle — both jacks are at the top.
- Off-suit ace
- An ace in a non-trump suit. The most useful non-trump card you can hold, and the reason a hand with two of them is often worth a call.
- The turn-up
- The card turned face up after the deal, proposing its suit as trump.
- The kitty
- The four undealt cards. The turn-up comes from the top of it.
Making trump
- Order it up
- Telling the dealer to pick up the turn-up, making its suit trump. Said by a non-dealer in the first round of bidding.
- Pick it up / Take it up
- What the dealer says when accepting trump themselves in the first round — they take the turn-up into hand and discard.
- Assist
- Ordering it up when you are the dealer's partner — you are handing them a known trump card.
- Pass
- Declining to name trump. Two full rounds of passes ends the hand unless stick the dealer is in force.
- Turn it down
- All four players passing in the first round. The turn-up is flipped face down and its suit cannot be named in the second round.
- Next
- Calling the suit of the same colour as the turned-down turn-up. A standard second-round tactic — the bowers of that suit are likelier to be live.
- Cross
- Calling a suit of the opposite colour from the turned-down turn-up. Generally needs a stronger hand than calling next.
- Maker
- The player who named trump. Their side is "the makers"; the other side is "the defenders".
- Stick the dealer
- A very common house rule: if everyone passes twice, the dealer must name a suit rather than redeal. Also called "screw the dealer".
Playing the hand
- Going alone / Loner
- Playing the hand without your partner, who lays their cards down and sits it out. Declared before the first lead. Taking all five tricks alone scores 4 instead of 2; taking three or four still scores the normal 1.
- March
- Taking all five tricks as a partnership. Worth 2 points.
- Euchred
- The makers taking fewer than three tricks. The defenders score 2 points. This is the game's defining humiliation and the source of its name.
- Renege
- Failing to follow suit when you could have. Usually penalised, and most often committed by a beginner playing the left bower on a lead of its original suit.
- Trump tight
- Holding trumps back rather than leading them.
- Farmer's hand
- A rare house rule allowing a swap with the kitty when dealt three nines and tens.
Scoring words
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Makers take 3 or 4 tricks | 1 |
| Makers take all 5 — a march | 2 |
| Makers take fewer than 3 — euchred | 2 to the defenders |
| Lone maker takes all 5 | 4 |
| Lone defender euchres the makers | 4 |
First side to 10 points wins. Traditional tables keep score with two spare cards — a 5 and a 6, or a pair of low cards — arranged face up and face down to show numbers from 1 to 10.
Three terms that trip people up
- The left bower is not its printed suit. If spades are trump, the J♣ is a spade for the whole hand. Lead a club and the left bower must not be played on it.
- "Going alone" is not the same as a march. A march is all five tricks with your partner; a loner is a declared attempt without them, and only a loner pays 4.
- "Euchred" describes the makers, not the defenders. You get euchred by failing your own call — not by losing tricks generally.
Keep reading
- How to Play Euchre — the complete rules.
- Euchre Strategy — calling, leading and going alone.
- Euchre Variants — three-hand, Pepper, Bid Euchre and more.
- Going Alone in Euchre — loner rules, scoring and defence.
- Euchre for 3 Players — cutthroat rules and scoring.