Hypertext Webster Gateway: "fantan"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Fan-tan \Fan"-tan`\, n. [Chinese (of Canton) in an-tan-kun
gambling house.]
1. A Chinese gambling game in which coins or other small
objects are placed upon a table, usually under a cap, and
the players bet as to what remainder will be left when the
sum of the counters is divided by four.
2. A game with playing cards in which the cards are played in
sequences upon the table, the one who first gets rid of
his cards being the winner.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
fantan
n 1: a Chinese gambling game; a random number of counters are
placed under a bowl and you gamble on how many will be
left (0 or 1 or 2 or 3) modulo 4
2: a card game in which you play your sevens and other cards in
sequence in the same suit as their sevens; you win if you
are the first to use all your cards [syn: {sevens}, {parliament}]
Additional Hypertext Webster Gateway Lookup
Gateway by dict@stokkie.net
stock only wrote the gateway and does not have any control over the contents;
see the Webster Gateway FAQ,
and also the Back-end/database links and credits.