Pinochle Terms & Glossary

A quick-reference glossary for every Pinochle term you’ll run into, whether you’re reading the rules or sitting at the table trying to keep up.

Around — Four cards of the same rank, one from each suit (e.g., four Kings), melded together. See Meld Scoring.

Bid — The number a player commits their partnership to reaching in combined meld + trick points, won through the bidding phase. See Bidding Rules.

Bidder — The player who wins the bidding and names trump.

Counters — The Aces, 10s and Kings, each worth 10 points when captured in tricks. There are 24 in the deck.

Dix (pronounced “deece”) — The 9 of trump, worth 10 meld points (20 for both).

Double Deck Pinochle — A variant played with an 80-card deck — two Pinochle decks combined with the 9s removed. See Double-Deck Pinochle.

Double Pinochle — Both copies of the Pinochle combination (both Queens of Spades and both Jacks of Diamonds), worth 300 meld points.

Marriage — A King and Queen of the same suit, melded together. Worth 20 points, or 40 if it’s the trump suit.

Meld — (1) As a noun, a scoring combination of cards laid on the table. (2) As a verb, the act of laying those cards down. See Meld Scoring.

Partnership Pinochle — The standard 4-player version of the game, played in two fixed 2-player teams. See Four-Handed Partnership Pinochle.

Pinochle — The Queen of Spades + Jack of Diamonds combination the game is named after. Worth 40 meld points.

Run (also called a sequence) — Ace, 10, King, Queen, Jack, all of the trump suit. Worth 150 meld points.

Set — What happens when the bidding side fails to reach their bid in combined meld + trick points. Instead of scoring their total, they subtract their bid from their running score. See Scoring Explained.

Trick — One round of play where each player contributes one card; the highest-ranking card (accounting for trump) wins and collects all four cards. See Trick-Taking Rules.

Trump — The suit named by the bidder that outranks all other suits for the rest of the hand.

Widow / Kitty — Extra cards dealt to the table rather than to a player, used in some variants like Auction Pinochle but not in standard partnership Pinochle.