Ruffing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of using a trump card to win a trick in card games that involve a trump suit
2. Playing a trump card to override the leading suit in trick-taking games
3. Using a stronger trump card to take a trick in card games where trump suits apply

Etymology: The verb "ruff" in the card-game sense comes from a much older game word, and the best clue to its past is its sibling "trump." Old French had "roffle" or "rouffle," and Italian had "ronfa," both names for a card game similar to whist. These are thought to descend from words meaning "triumph" or "victory," which in Italian ("trionfo") also meant the trump card itself. That triumph word traces back through Latin "triumphus" to an ancient Greek word for a hymn to Dionysus, the god of wine. So "ruff," meaning to play a trump on a suit you cannot follow, is essentially a doublet of "trump," the same word that arrived in English by a different route. The verb was formed from the older noun for the card game and its trump play, and the word's sense stayed close to victory: to ruff is to win a trick by triumphing over the suit that was led.