Hand & Foot Terms Glossary — Every Term Explained
The Hand & Foot table terms you will hear most, with short explanations.
- Hand
- The first pile of 11 cards dealt to you, played face up in your turn.
- Foot
- Your second pile of 11 cards, kept face down and played only after your hand is used up.
- Meld
- Three to seven cards of the same natural rank laid face up on the table by a partnership.
- Book
- A completed meld of exactly seven cards, squared up so its type shows (red card = clean, black = dirty, joker = wild).
- Clean (natural) book
- A seven-card book with no wild cards — worth 500 points.
- Dirty book
- A seven-card book containing one or more wild cards — worth 300 points.
- Wild book
- A book made only of twos and jokers — worth 1,500 points.
- Wild card
- Twos and jokers; they substitute for any natural card (at most half as many wilds as naturals in a meld).
- Red three
- ♥3 or ♦3 — a bonus card laid out at once (+100 if the team melded, −100 if not).
- Black three
- ♠3 or ♣3 — a stop card; discarding it blocks the next player from taking the pile.
- Taking the pile
- Buying the top seven cards of the discard pile by immediately melding its top card with two matching naturals from your hand.
- Minimum meld
- The point total a team's first meld of a deal must reach: 50, 90, 120 or 150 by round.
- Picking up the foot
- Turning your face-down foot into your playing hand after emptying your hand.
- Going out
- Playing every card from your foot once your team has a clean book, a dirty book and a partner in their foot — +100.
- Stock
- The face-down draw pile; when it runs out, the deal ends.
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