cardhouse

Noun

cardhouse (countable and uncountable, plural cardhouses)

1. (countable) A business establishment that hosts card-playing, especially one where patrons play poker.
   • "Twas first to the cardhouse and then down to Maisie's," intoned that mournful ballad "The Cowboy's Lament." But most real-life trail riders went first to the bathtub and then to the haberdasher, if only because neither Maisie nor the cardhouse would truly welcome a man so long as he had the look...1973, William H. Forbis, The cowboys, page 183
   • He spends six nights a week at the cardhouse.2003, Andy Bellin, Poker Nation, page 8
2. (attributive, uncountable) A structure of plate-like mineral deposits that rest on each other's edges.
   • He also expressed the opinion that certain sensitive clays derived their properties from the fact that the flaky minerals were arranged in an unstable “cardhouse” fabric.1966, Clay Minerals Society, Clays and Clay Minerals
   • The microstructures do not appear to conform entirely to either cardhouse or honeycomb structures.1967, Contributions in Oceanography - Issues 319-361, page 375
3. (countable) Synonym of house of cards (any sense).
   • The photographer glanced up at them over a four-storeyed cardhouse, which he had built out of crispbread.1977, Tord Hubert, The Trap, page 30
   • On the other hand (and perhaps incompatibly) he was thought to be dangerously addicted to speculation: 'an inveterate theorist, an intellectual cardhouse builder'.2007, H. S. Jones, Intellect and Character in Victorian England, page 43

   Synonyms:

   house of cards