Definition of "pinochle" [pin•o•chle]

• A game of cards for two to four persons, played with a special deck of 48 cards, with points being scored by taking tricks and forming certain combinations. (noun)
• The combination of the queen of spades and jack of diamonds in this game. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Interesting that “marriage” is a type of meld in pinochle (king and queen of the same suit)."
• "In fact, one of the things he did when he went to New York was that he went to the Waiters Club in New York, and has an - he was a fiend for pinochle, which is - is it "pin-oakley" or "pin-ockle"?"
• "This brought the verb meld into much wider circulation than it ever had before, though it had been recorded from the 1880s in connection with other card games, such as pinochle and rummy."