card house

card house (plural card houses)

1. Alternative form of cardhouse
   1. House of cards
      • 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby:

        So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes.

      • 2006, D. B. Smithee, The Dog Poker Code, page 26:

        And if you look carefully at the card house, you will see that top two cards are aces of clubs.

      • 2009, Karl Fulves, Foolproof Card Tricks for the Amateur Magician, page 71:

        Place two of them together on top of the card case as shown in Figure 30 to form the walls of the card house.

      • 2013, Kim Stanley Robinson, The Gold Coast: Three Californias, page 306:

        Where did that come from, he thinks. Ah, We're the card house now. There's never a situation where one card is threatened, the others left in peace; they're all threatened together and at once.

   2. Business where patrons play cards
      • 1956, Across the Board, page 121:

        He owned a goulash or card house, on upper Broadway, where I got many laughs.

      • 2003, Tabor Evans, Longarm and Town-Taming Tess:

        Feeling surer of his bearings, once he'd strode down to the creek and back again, Longarm quietly entered the noisy card house, drifted to the bar, and ordered a schooner of suds to nurse as he lounged there with one boot on the brass rail and the brim of his Stetson shading his tanned face from the coal-oil lamp right above him.

      • 2004, Scott Tharler, Winning Casino Gambling, page 132:

        So when you walk into a casino or card house, you can expect to find more people playing more varieties of poker more frequently than ever.