Word.ws English Dictionary

trump

/tɹʌmp//tɹʌmp/

trump noun: the suit, in a game of cards, that outranks all others.

Noun (1)

trump (plural trumps)

  1. The suit, in a game of cards, that outranks all others.
    • Diamonds were declared trump(s).
    • And now her Heart with Pleasure jumps,
      She scarce remembers what is Trumps.1730, Jonathan Swift, “Death And Daphne,”, in Some Verse Pieces
  2. A playing card of that suit.
    • He played an even higher trump.
  3. (figuratively) Something that gives one an advantage, especially one held in reserve.
    • VVere Iacke Strawe a liue againe,
      And I in as good poſſibility as euer I was,
      I would lay a ſurer trumpe,
      Ere I would loſe ſo faire a tricke.1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act IV
  4. (archaic, colloquial) An excellent person; a fine fellow, a good egg.
    • [W]e permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.1838, Abraham Lincoln, “Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois”, in The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions, archived from the original on 05 Feb 2013
    • All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
  5. An old card game, almost identical to whist; the game of ruff.
    • There be many one that breaketh this carde,[…]and playeth there with oftentimes at the blinde trompe, wherby they be no winners but great losersc. 1529, Hugh Latimer, Sermons on the Card
    • Trionfo,[…]also a trump at cards, or the play called trump or ruff.1598, John Florio, “Trump”, in A Worlde of Words, or Most Copious, and Exact Dictionarie in Italian and English, […], London: […] Arnold Hatfield for Edw[ard] Blount, →OCLC
  6. A card of the major arcana of the tarot.

Verb (1)

trump (third-person singular simple present trumps, present participle trumping, simple past and past participle trumped)

  1. (transitive) To play on (a card of another suit) with a trump.
    • He knew the hand was lost when his ace was trumped.
    • He lost his money at whist after dinner, and actually trumped his partner’s highest spade.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 52, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
  2. (intransitive) To play a trump, or to take a trick with a trump.
  3. (transitive) To get the better of, or finesse, a competitor.
    • to trick or trump mankind, Act 1, Scene 3
    • Wren, who had hoped to make his name with his discovery, immediately put De Corpore aside, hoping that in silence his failure would disappear. He was forced to think again about his future and resolved to seek new territory within the New Philosophy which he could call his own, rather than face the...2011, Leo Hollis, The Phoenix
    Synonyms:
    outsmart
  4. (dated, transitive) To impose unfairly; to palm off.
    • Authors have been trumped upon us.1699, Charles Leslie, A Short and Easy Method with the Deists
  5. (transitive) To supersede.
    • In this election, it would seem issues of national security trumped economic issues.
    • The phrase was, and remains, a double-edged sword: a testament to the hard-working and hard-living citizens of the Crescent City and an indicator of the “ah, whatever” shrug hanging over its corrupt politics, its ramshackle infrastructure and its belief that partying trumps all.2015 August 12, Todd Leopold, “Return to the ‘City That Care Forgot’”, in CNN, archived from the original on 02 Jan 2022
  6. (transitive) To outweigh; be stronger, greater, bigger than or in other way superior to.

Noun (2)

trump (plural trumps)

  1. (archaic) A trumpet.
    • In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Corinthians 15:52
    • Sound, sound the trump of fame,1798, Joseph Hopkinson, Hail, Columbia
  2. (UK, colloquial) A fart.
  3. The noise made by an elephant through its trunk.

Verb (2)

trump (third-person singular simple present trumps, present participle trumping, simple past and past participle trumped)

  1. To blow a trumpet.
  2. (UK, colloquial, intransitive) To fart.
    • And without warning me, as he lay there, he suddenly trumped next to me in bed.
    • Who trumped?

Noun (3)

trump (plural trumps)

  1. (dated) Synonym of Jew's harp.
    Synonyms:
    Jew's harp

Proper noun capitalized: Trump

Trump (countable and uncountable, plural Trumps)

  1. A surname.
    • The house at which he was to lodge had been selected with considerable judgment. It was kept by a tidy old widow known as Mrs. Trump; but those who knew any thing of Hamworth affairs were well aware that Mrs. Trump had been left without a shilling, and could not have taken that snug little house in...1861, Anthony Trollope, chapter XXXII, in Orley Farm
    1. A surname from English.
    2. A surname from German.
    3. Donald Trump (b. 1946), a businessman, television personality, and current president of the United States of America (2017–2021, 2025–present).
      • During their interview, Shahidi asked Clinton about the uncomfortable second presidential debate, during which Trump stalked her around the stage.2017 December 3, Kayleigh Roberts, “Yara Shahidi Just Asked Hillary Clinton About That Very Uncomfortable Trump Debate”, in Harper's BAZAAR, archived from the original on 18 Aug 2019
  2. A ghost town in Park County, Colorado, United States.
  3. An unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States.

trump meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

trump in Hindi

suit that outranks all others
तुरुप turup

trump in Tamil

ட்ரம்ப், டிரம்பின், டிரம்பே

trump in Marathi

trump
हुकूम hukūm

trump in Urdu

suit that outranks all others
تُرُوپ turūp, تُرُپ turup
More languagesFewer languages
trump in Bengali
ট্রাম্প, ট্রাম্পকে, ট্রাম্প-এর কাছে
trump in Telugu
తురుపు turupu
trump in Malayalam
തുറുപ്പിറക്കുക, നിഷ്പ്രഭമാക്കുക, മറ്റുള്ളവരെക്കാൾ ശോഭിക്കുക, കൂടുതൽ തിളങ്ങുക
trump in Kannada
ಟ್ರಂಪ್, ಟ್ರಂಪ್ರವರು, ಟ್ರಮ್ಪ್
trump in Punjabi
ਟਰੰਪ, ਟਰੰਪ ਨੇ, ਟਰੰਪਿੰਗ
trump in Gujarati
હુકમ hukam
trump in Odia
ଟ୍ରମ୍ପ୍, ଟ୍ରମ୍ପ, ଟ୍ରମ୍ପଙ୍କୁ
trump in Nepali
ट्रम्प, ट्रम्पलाई
trump in Arabic
وَرَقَة رَابِحَة waraqa rābiḥa
trump in Indonesian
truf
trump in Thai
ไต๋ dtǎi, ไพ่ตาย pâi-dtaai
trump in Vietnamese
chủ bài
trump in Myanmar
ဝှက်ဖဲ hwakhpai:

Examples of trump in a sentence

  • I'm holding on to my trump cards until I really need them.
  • If one players plays a trump, the others must return a trump.
  • His electoral "campaign" to date has included attempts to trump up criminal charges against his opponents.

All 40 example sentences with trump

Synonyms of trump

25 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of trump

Forms of trump

Noun
pluraltrumps
Verb
third-person singular presenttrumps
present participletrumping
past participletrumped
pasttrumped
Proper noun
pluralTrumps

Past tense of trump: trumped

Plural of trump: trumps

Origin of trump

Possibly from French triomphe (“triumph”) or Old French triumphe. If so, it is a doublet of triumph and thriambus. Compare German Trumpf.

From Middle English trumpe, trompe (“trumpet”), from Old French trompe (“horn, trump, trumpet”), from Frankish *trumpa (“trumpet”), from a common Germanic word of imitative origin. Doublet of tulumba and tromp. Akin to Old High German trumpa, trumba (“horn, trumpet”), Middle Dutch tromme (“drum”), Middle Low German trumme (“drum”). More at trumpet, drum.

Ellipsis of Jew's-trump, which may be from French jeu-trompe (literally “toy trumpet”).

Words formed from trump

Phrases with trump

Words that rhyme with trump

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about trump

What does trump mean?
Trump means the suit, in a game of cards, that outranks all others.
What is trump in Hindi?
Trump in Hindi is तुरुप (turup). See Trump meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is trump?
Trump can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce trump?
Trump is pronounced /tɹʌmp/.
What is the plural of trump?
The plural of trump is trumps.

Words near trump in the dictionary

  1. trumeau mirror
  2. trumeau mirrors
  3. trumeaus
  4. trumeaux
  5. trumed
  6. trump
  7. Trump 45
  8. Trump account
  9. Trump bump
  10. trump card
  11. trump cards

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trump (page history and authors); Trump (page history and authors); trump (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); हुकूम (Marathi) (page history and authors); trump (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trump (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); trump (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trump (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); હુકમ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); trump (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); trump (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-trump.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-trump.wav.

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