Solitaire Glossary
Every solitaire game leans on the same handful of words: tableau, foundation, stock, waste. Once you know them, the rules for any variant read like plain English. This glossary defines the terms you will meet across the whole solitaire family, from the classics to the tricky corners of Spider and FreeCell.
If you are brand new, skim this page before the rules. You do not need to memorize anything - just get a feel for the vocabulary, then read the full solitaire rules or the FAQ and the words will already make sense. Each term below has its own link, so other pages can point straight to a definition.
💡 Tip: Learn the four core terms first - tableau, foundation, stock, and waste. Almost every rule you read is built from those four ideas.
Core layout terms
Deck
A full set of 52 playing cards in four suits. Klondike and FreeCell use one deck; Spider and Forty Thieves use two decks (104 cards). The deck is shuffled at the start of every deal.
Suit
One of the four card families: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Hearts and diamonds are red; clubs and spades are black. Some games care about suit, others only about color or rank.
Rank
A card's number or value, from Ace (low) through 2 to 10, then Jack, Queen, and King (high). Building games move cards by rank order; matching games pair cards by their rank.
Pip
The small suit symbols printed on a card. A "pip card" is a plain number card (2 through 10), as opposed to a picture card. The number of pips tells you the rank at a glance.
Court cards
The picture cards - Jack, Queen, and King, sometimes called face cards. They rank just above the 10. In most games the King is the highest card and the Ace the lowest.
Tableau
The main playing area where most cards are dealt into columns. Nearly all of your moves happen here. Each game sets its own rule for how tableau cards may be stacked.
Tableau pile
A single column within the tableau. Also called a column or cascade. Cards overlap so you can read them, and usually only the bottom (most exposed) card is fully in play.
Foundation
The goal piles you are trying to fill, usually one per suit built up from Ace to King. When every foundation is complete, you win. Matching games like Pyramid have no foundations.
Foundation pile
One of the individual foundations, typically holding a single suit. In Klondike and FreeCell there are four foundation piles, one for each suit.
Stock
The pile of undealt cards you draw from during play. In Klondike you click the stock to reveal new cards; in Spider it deals a fresh card to every column at once. Some games have no stock at all.
Waste (talon)
The face-up pile that receives cards flipped from the stock. Also called the talon. Usually only the top waste card is playable. You often recycle the waste back into the stock to deal again.
Waste pile
Another name for the waste. In matching games such as TriPeaks and Golf, the waste pile is where you play cards onto, and its top card sets which card you may play next.
Free cell
A single-card parking spot unique to FreeCell. Each of the four free cells holds one card as temporary storage. Filling all of them at once usually locks the game.
Reserve
A side pile of set-aside cards used in games like Canfield and Scorpion. Reserve cards feed into play under special conditions, and emptying the reserve is often the hardest part.
Cell (cell capacity / supermove)
In FreeCell, your cell capacity is how many cards you can move as a group. A supermove shifts several cards at once, powered by your empty cells and columns. The size is (free cells + 1) doubled for each empty column.
Empty column
A tableau column with no cards left in it. Empty columns are powerful work space. In many games only a King (with its group) may fill one, which is the empty-column rule.
Card movement terms
Deal
The act of laying out cards at the start of a game, and also the specific shuffled arrangement you are given. "This deal is tough" means the cards fell in a hard-to-solve pattern.
Build (build down / build up)
To stack cards in order. Build down means placing a lower card on a higher one (a 6 on a 7) in the tableau. Build up means the reverse, usually on the foundations from Ace toward King.
Sequence (run)
A group of cards in consecutive rank order, such as 9-8-7. Also called a run. Many games let you move a whole sequence at once if it follows the building rule.
Packing
An older word for building cards onto one another in the tableau. "Packing in suit" means stacking cards of the same suit in order, as in Russian Solitaire.
Cascade (column)
Another name for a tableau column, where cards overlap in a fanned line. The FreeCell term for its eight columns is cascades. "Cascade" and "column" mean the same thing.
Alternating colors
A building rule where each card must be the opposite color of the one below it - red on black, black on red. Klondike, FreeCell, and Yukon all build down in alternating colors.
Same-suit build
A stricter building rule where cards must be the same suit, not just the same color. Spider moves same-suit runs, and Russian Solitaire builds down in suit, which makes it far harder.
Face-up / face-down
A face-up card shows its value and can usually be played; a face-down card is hidden until uncovered. Revealing face-down cards is the key to winning most tableau games.
Flip
To turn a card over. When the last card covering a face-down card is removed, that card flips face up, often automatically. Flipping hidden cards is usually your most valuable kind of move.
King (empty-column rule)
In Klondike, Yukon, and their relatives, only a King may move into an empty column. This makes empty columns valuable but restricted, so you plan which King to place before you clear a column.
Ace (foundation base)
The Ace usually starts each foundation, since it is the lowest card. You send Aces up first, then build 2, 3, 4 and so on. In Canfield the foundations start on a different rank instead.
Drag-and-drop
Moving a card by holding and dragging it with a mouse or finger to its destination. The classic way to play digital solitaire, and how the game teaches new mouse users.
Tap-to-move
A faster input style where you tap or click a card and the game sends it to the best legal spot automatically. Great on phones, where dragging across the board can be fiddly.
Scoring and winning terms
Redeal
To recycle the stock or reshuffle so you can play through the undealt cards again. Games differ on how many redeals you get, from unlimited to none. Fewer redeals means a harder game.
Auto-complete (auto-finish)
A convenience feature that finishes a won game for you once every card is face up and can reach the foundations. Also called auto-finish. It saves the tedious clicking at the end of a solved deal.
Undo
To take back your last move. Casual players use undo to explore a deal like a puzzle. Competitive and Vegas play usually forbid it, since it turns a risky game into a solvable one.
Hint
A helper that suggests a legal move when you are stuck. Handy for learning, though the hinted move is not always the best one for winning the whole deal.
Winnable (solvable) deal
A deal that can be won with perfect play. Nearly every FreeCell deal is winnable, while many Pyramid deals are not. See what percentage of solitaire is winnable for the numbers.
Dead deal
A deal with no possible winning line, or a board where you have run out of legal moves. When a deal is dead, the smart move is to start fresh rather than fight a lost cause.
Standard scoring
The common point system that rewards moves to the foundations and finishing quickly, often with a time bonus. Most casual apps use a version of it. See how solitaire is scored.
Vegas scoring
A gambling-style system where you "buy" the deck for $52 and earn $5 for each card sent to a foundation. You play for a running bankroll across many deals rather than for a clean single win.
Streak
A run of cards played back-to-back without a break, which builds a rising score multiplier in games like TriPeaks. Flipping a stock card resets the streak to zero.
Daily deal (seed)
A single shared deal that everyone plays on the same day, generated from a fixed seed so every player gets identical cards. Try today's Daily Challenge to compare your result with others.
Shuffle
To randomize the deck order before dealing. A digital shuffle uses a seed number, which is how a daily deal can hand the exact same shuffle to every player.
Variant-specific terms
Turn 1 / Turn 3
Klondike stock settings. Turn 1 flips one card at a time and is forgiving; Turn 3 flips three cards but lets you play only the top one, hiding two of every three and making the game much tougher.
One-suit / two-suit / four-suit (Spider)
Spider's difficulty ladder. One suit (all spades) is a gentle warm-up, two suits adds a second suit, and four suits uses the full deck and is one of the hardest solitaire games there is.
Peak (TriPeaks)
One of the three overlapping pyramids of cards in TriPeaks. Clearing a full peak pays a bonus. Leaving one peak for last, with no cards to chain to, is the classic TriPeaks trap.
Wrap-around
A rule that lets ranks loop from King back to Ace. In TriPeaks an Ace links Kings and 2s, which keeps long chains going. Classic Golf has no wrap-around, so a King ends a chain.
Wild card
A special card that can stand in for any rank or suit to keep a play going. Wild cards are not part of classic solitaire, but some modern app variants add them as a boost or reward.
Supermove (FreeCell)
A single action that moves a whole sequence of cards in FreeCell, made possible by your empty free cells and columns. See cell capacity above for the formula that sets how big a supermove can be.
Crane lift (Yukon)
In Yukon, moving a face-up card together with every card stacked on top of it, even if that group is not in order. It lets you relocate a whole messy pile in one move.
That is the core vocabulary of solitaire. Keep this glossary open in a tab the first few times you try a new game, and the terms will stick fast. Ready to put them to use? Jump into a classic game of Klondike, or browse the full lineup on the more games page.