casino
Pluralcasinos, casinoes, casini
- 1A public building or room where people gamble.
The casino floor was packed with players late into the night.
She works as a dealer at a casino in Las Vegas.
Note
Behind the gambling hall is a much humbler word: Italian casino, a diminutive of casa, "house", from Latin casa, "cottage, hut". The name first meant a little house, and the Italian pleasure house keeps that older meaning. In English the plural is casinos, though casinoes and the Italian plural casini also occur.
- 2An Italian card game played by two to four players.
After dinner the family dealt out a few hands of casino.
He prefers casino to most other card games for two.
- 3One of certain cards that carry special meanings in casino, an Italian card game for two to four players.
Letting a casino slip to his opponent in the final hand cost him the whole game.
Players race to scoop up the casinos before their opponents do.
Less common meaning
- 4A small house, especially in Italy, kept as a pleasure house or vacation home.
Each evening the family withdrew to the casino at the edge of the vineyard.
Quirini [was] knowing in the belles Lettres, & highly skilled in making his Casino comfortable to all the Wits & Blues as we now call them in London.
1786, Hester Thrale Piozzi, ThralianaNote
The domestic meaning the word arrived with: Italian casino is a little casa, a "house". It named a small villa kept for pleasure and company. Hester Thrale Piozzi, in 1786, admires a host skilled at making his casino comfortable for the wits and Blues. The sense is obsolete, so in older prose read it as a retreat. Today the gambling house has taken the word over entirely.
Practice
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Origin
From Italian casino, the diminutive of casa ("house"), which comes from Latin casa ("cottage, hut").