Clubs

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Clubs (♣) (also known as clovers or flowers) is one of the four suits found in the "international" deck of playing cards. The standard international deck uses the French suit system.

In bridge, it ranks lowest out of all four suits, below diamonds. In some card games of Germanic origin such as Skat or Sheepshead, the suits rank: clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds. In cartomancy, interpretations vary; the most common association links it with inner wisdom, industriousness and creative enthusiasm, but some systems associate it with war.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}

The symbol, believed to be an adaptation of the German suit of acorns^[1], was first used on French playing cards, made in Rouen and Lyon in the 15th century, around the time that playing cards were first mass-produced by the use of woodcuts.

Analogues in other suits

• German suits: acorns (German: Eichel)
• Swiss German suits: acorns (German: Eichel)
• Italo-Spanish (Latin) suits: clubs or batons (Italian: Bastoni / Spanish: Bastos)
• Tarot suits: Tarot cards may be Italo-Spanish or French suited. In occult tarot, the clubs or batons suit of the Italian suited tarot is often named "wands."

Meanings in other languages

• Bulgarian: Спатия (Spatia) or Трефа (Trefa) (transcription from French)
• Czech: Kříže - crosses
• Dutch: Klaveren - clovers
• Finnish: Ristit - crosses
• French: trèfle clovers
• German: Kreuz - crosses
• Greek: Σπαθιά (Spathia) - swords
• Hebrew: תלתן‎ (Tiltan) - clover (always singular)
• Icelandic: Lauf - leaves
• Indonesian: Keriting - Curly or Cengkir - Cloves
• Italian: Fiori - flowers
• Japanese: クラブ - clubs or クローバー - clovers
• Lithuanian: Kryžiai - crosses
• Macedonian: Детелина (Detelina) - clover (always singular)
• Hungarian: treff
• Norwegian: Kløver - clovers (always plural)
• Persian: گیشنیز - clovers
• Polish: Trefl - transcription from French, or Żołądź - acorn
• Portuguese: Paus - sticks, clubs
• Romanian: Treflă - clover
• Russian: Трефы (Trefy) (transcription from French) or Крести (Kresti) (from Russian: кресты - crosses)
• Spanish: Tréboles - clovers
• Swedish: Klöver - clovers
• Thai: ดอกจิก - clovers
• Turkish: Sinek - flies (originally fly only)
• Vietnamese: Tép/Nhép

Сodes of symbol

Unicode — U+2663 and U+2667

♣ ♧

HTML — ♣ (or ♣) and ♧

♣ ♧

Example cards

Ace	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10
Jack	Queen	King

References

1. ^ snopes.com (2007-09-29). "Four Kings in a Deck of Cards". http://www.snopes.com/history/world/cardking.asp. Retrieved 2009-02-11.