Difference between revisions of "Trump"

Revision as of 11:31, 26 May 2019

Trump is a homonym: there are at least three different words spelt trump, all of them pronounced in the same way, IPA: / trʌmp/.

In the context of card games such as bridge and whist a trump or trump card is a playing card of a suit which outranks the other suits. Trump in this context may also be used as a verb, as in ‘Her five of spades trumped his ace of clubs’. The plural trumps is used, e.g., at the start of a game to designate the suit which will outrank the other suits, as in “‘Let spades be trumps’, she said, and trumps they were’” (Alexander Pope (1688-1744), The Rape of the Lock, Canto 3, l. 46).

• Whether as a noun or a verb, trump may be used metaphorically of anything which is (confidently expected to be) decisive in bringing success, e.g., a consideration which (one knows) will prevail over or outweigh all other relevant considerations – as in ‘Then I played my trump card and revealed that my proposal had the support of the Vice-chancellor’. The expression ‘to come up trumps’ is used to mean ‘to be or prove successful, to prevail over’, as in ‘John has come up trumps again and found a solution to our problem’.

• All these uses of trump derive from trionfi, the name of a type of 15th century Italian playing card. Trionfi were the fifth suit and permanent trumps in a card game also called trionfi. (The Italian trionfi is the plural of trionfo, which comes from the Latin triumphus, ‘triumph, victory procession’, which in turn comes from the Greek θρίαμβος, a hymn to the god Dionysus, sung in processions in his honour.)

• Perhaps confusingly, the verbal phrase ‘to trump up’ has a quite different etymology and meaning. It derives from the French verb tromper, ‘to deceive’ and means ‘to make up or fabricate with the intention of deceiving’, as in ‘The regime regularly trumps up charges against dissidents and has them sent to prison’. The past participle passive of the verb is often used adjectivally, as in ‘Dissidents are regularly imprisoned on trumped up charges’.

• The noun trumpery has a similar etymology: it is an anglicised form of the French tromperie, one of the nouns formed from the verb tromper. Trumpery refers collectively to articles which are superficially attractive but have little use or value, i.e., worthless trinkets. The word is also used adjectivally with the meaning ’superficially attractive but worthless’, as in such expressions as ‘trumpery jewellery’, ‘trumpery claims’, and ‘trumpery promises’.

• Finally, trump may be an abbreviated form of trumpet (i.e., the musical instrument). This use of trump is confined to poetry and nowadays rare, except in the expression The Last Trump, i.e., the trumpet call which, according to Christian belief, will wake the dead on the Day of Judgement. Trumpet (and hence this use of trump) comes from the Old French trompette, a little trompe, which in turn comes from Old High German trompa, a trumpet. Students in Hull and elsewhere in England may hear schoolchildren using the slang and rather taboo verb and noun 'trump' to mean 'fart', or as [Collins English Dictionary (2017)] puts it more formally, "(intransitive) British slang to expel intestinal gas through the anus".

Note: The surname of the 45th US president, Donald John Trump (1946-), is German: his grandfather, Frederick Trump (1869-1918) emigrated to the United States from Germany in the 1880s. The German surname Trump is said to derive from a Bavarian word for ‘drum’ (Old High German Trumpe). Trump is also an English surname, deriving from the French Trompeor: it was introduced into Britain by the Norman invaders in 1066 and used, as a surname for trumpet-players or trumpet-makers.