A Playing Card

A playing card is a palm-sized piece that is made up of special heavy paper, thin cardboard, or thin plastic. Each card is printed with distinguishing motifs or ornaments and is usually used as a part of a set when playing card games, board games, performing magic tricks, ecc.

A Card Deck - Definition

A pack or deck – that is how a complete set of cards is called, and it may be used for playing a great variety of card games, including hazard games. In some of the games the subset of cards held at one time by a player can be called a hand. The cards in the deck are standartised and in this way are used for different purposes, such as encryption or cartomancy. The cards are assembled into a deck for most of the games, and are randomly ordered by shuffling.

The "Face" Of The Card

While the backs of the cards are usually uniform, the front (or "face") of each card is unique. And actually the front markings are those that distinguish the card from the others in the deck. The "face" determines the role or the use of a single card in the variety of games. As mentioned above, what is identical for all cards in any particular deck is the back of each card. The design and the color in the backs are always uniform when the cards are part of the same deck. Sometimes logos and advertisers are put on the back of the playing cards, as well.