Word.ws English Dictionary

on the cards

on the cards prepositional phrase: likely to occur, probable.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Likely to occur, probable.
    • "After all, there are two ends to every stick," he reminded her, "and it's quite on the cards for mine to be the one that next waggles. […]"1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
    • Wolves, sensing the comeback of all comebacks was on the cards, kept pressing and set up an exciting finish when Ronald Zubar's header was judged to have crossed the line, even though it appeared that Nigel de Jong had successfully cleared the effort.2011 January 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 4 - 3 Wolves”, in BBC

on the cards meaning in Malayalam

on the cards in Malayalam

possible, likely, probable
സംഭാവ്യമായ, സംഭവിക്കാവുന്ന, സാധ്യതയുള്ള, സംഭാവ്യസാദ്ധ്യമായ, സംഭവിക്കാൻ ഇടയുള്ള, ഇടയായേക്കാവുന്ന

Forms of on the cards

alternative formin the cards

Origin of on the cards

Originally referring to the predictions of fortune-tellers using cards.

Questions about on the cards

What does on the cards mean?
On the cards means likely to occur, probable.
What is on the cards in Malayalam?
On the cards in Malayalam is സംഭാവ്യമായ, സംഭവിക്കാവുന്ന, സാധ്യതയുള്ള. See On the cards meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is on the cards?
On the cards is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on the cards in the dictionary

  1. on the bung
  2. on the burst
  3. on the button
  4. on the cadge
  5. on the canvas
  6. on the cards
  7. on the carpet
  8. on the case
  9. on the cheap
  10. on the clock
  11. on the club

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the cards (page history and authors); on the cards (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-on the cards.ogg.

Cite this entry: “on the cards.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_the_cards. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.