This is a card game rather popular in mid-eastern canada. I have yet to meet a french-canadian who doesn’t play it, yet no one seems to know what it means.
help.
The OED doesn’t know:
Damn. Beat me to it.
“One explanation of the word Euchre itself describes it as a sort of Germanic mispronunciation of Joker. Others range from the implausible to the improbable.”
from “The penguin book of card games”, by David Parlett, published 1979, page 122
I think I remember that Mr. Parlett may have gone into slightly more detail in his book focusing on four-person card games in particular, but I can’t figure out where I left that one. (Quite an authority on card diversions of all sorts, especially any that have ever been played in the british isles.)
And if you’re wondering why euchre would be named after the joker when the joker isn’t even in play… then you’re playing it about a hundred years too late. 
(Originally the jester was the Best Bower in play, overtrumping even the familiar jacks of color, the left and right bowers, but he got benched when the game got streamlined.)
I just want to needlessly interject that euchre is exceptionally popular in Michigan. Back in my Army days, I always knew who else was from Michigan whenever I’d encounter them playing euchre.
While there is currently no clue as to where the word Euchre came from, the game is strictly US and traced back in print to 1841.
I’m from Michigan and agree. It’s popular here. I thought it was fairly popular elsewhere; isn’t there a Poirot novel where he solves the murder by studying the Euchre playing?
Certainly not just Michigan… I’d say “Midwest in general”… I learned it at Indiana U, and everyone there seemed to know the game.
Except for the music majors…
Funny how a “strictly US” game is “popular in mid-Eastern Canada”, as stated in the OP.
A quick Google search turns up this site, stating:
And many others stating pretty much the same thing, so one can’t even say it’s strictly US in origin.
All the steelworkers in Pittsburgh play. I’ve been playing since I was a teenager.
Incidentally, Euchre is responsible for the joker’s inclusion in our modern deck of cards.
I should have said that the game is almost certainly US in origin. That is what the OED says. You can quote websites that suggest that the game came from Alsace and a game called “jucker” , but what you need to do is show a website that can offer some proof of this. I couldn’t find one. They all seem to copy off of each other.
I’m in Ohio, and not being able to play euchre can be a serious handicap to your social life here.
I once stumbled across a Mark Twain story about a man who cheated at euchre.
I think the entent of Matho’s post was not about the game’s origin, but to counter the claim that it was played exclusively in the midwestern US. Several people have testified from personal experience to its popularity in eastern mainland canada. Is there anyone from britain who can offer similar testimony??
Well, “According to Hoyle” (or at least the copy of Hoyle’s in the university library) euchre qua euchre originated in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. In that sense I suppose it originated in the US, but to me it lends quite a bit of credence to an Alsace pedigree. I wouldn’t say euchre is “strictly US” any more than I would say American Football is “strictly US” in origin, deriving as it did from older games in Britain.
If you would, does that copy of “Hoyle” cite any evidence that the game originated in the “Pennsylvania Dutch country.” Not saying it didn’t, just would like to know how I can find out where that snippet came from originally.
Finding original cites, footnotes, etc, is the key.
I’m quite sure that the game, which is first cited in print from the 1840’s, was widely popular in the Northern Mid-US and Canada. And still is. IT quite possibly originated in Britain.
I never heard of it until I moved to Ohio in 1971. Everyone here knows it as a child. I didn’t ever hear of it in Virginia/North Carolina in the 1950’s/60’s.
I’m just looking for a print cite that would help tie it to somewhere other than the US in the first half of the 19th century or before.
Unfortunately, I don’t recall specifically offhand, and the copy was noncirculating. Hoyle specializes in rules more than history, so it’s not really the kind of thing that comes with footnotes.
Then again, I’m astonished a Doper hasn’t heard of Hoyle’s Rules of Games, especially as “according to Hoyle” has become synonymous with authority on card games and, by generalization, in any field. To note the OED:
Maybe we should start saying “According to Cece”.
If you mean than I haven’t heard of Hoyle, that would be incorrect. You were born in 1979. I was born in 1944. I perhaps knew of Hoyle a bit before you. It’s just that Hoyle forgot to include euchre in some of his early editions. :smack:
I can also access and copy/paste quotes from the OED to the site, as I often do.
What you need to do to help the discussion is provide a cite which pre-dates the 1846 entry in the OED(1841 in the Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate–I’m not sure where their cite is from, but I’ll email Joanne Despres and find out).
If you can provide any contemporary(1800-1860) cites that indicates the game was European in origin, that would help.
When I first started reading this thread, I got to wondering – just what IS euchre? I had heard of the game, but I’ve never seen it played in either Louisiana or Mississippi.
I Googled the rules, and see that euchre is basically spades played with the 2-8 of each suit left out of the deck. With each player holding five cards, euchre is very much like sped-up spades, except the trump suit is determined round by round. Also, in versions of spades I’ve played, two jokers are tacked on to the top of the trump suit (viz spades), which simulates the use in euchre of common-colored jacks as the “bosses” of the trump suit.
There’s a related card game played in rural Louisiana (and perhaps elsewhere) which is even more similar to euchre than spades is – the game of Pedro. Instead of common-colored jacks being the trump bosses, common-colored fives (the Pedros) rule in Pedro. Unlike euchre, in Pedro, the entire 52-card deck is dealt out.
…
So anyway, where is the “euchre line”? We’ve got an attestation of euchre being common at the Univ of Indiana. Is euchre played in Kentucky? Any further south?
Hmmm… sounds like you’ve got a fairly good understanding of the rules of euchre, except for perhaps the scoring system - I’m not certain what scoring is involved in spades.
In euchre, the most important detail of scoring is to do with making three out of the five tricks… if the side that has made trumps can do this, they score a single point. If the opponents make three and thus prevent the makers from getting three, the opponents have ‘euchre-d’ the makers and score two points.
If the makers manage to capture all five tricks, they score two points, and if a single player, making trump is confident in making all five tricks by himself, he can ‘go it alone’ (instruct his partner to fold up his cards and go it alone,) and if he takes all five it is worth four points to his side. (I’ve heard of variations where a defender can also ‘go it alone’ against a solo maker, scoring four points for the euchre.)
Games are typically played up to ten points, with one player from each side keeping score using the two fives of a particular color (not used in play,) and using intricate patterns to display the score as the number of pips showing on the cards. (For instance, to indicate ‘two’, I might put the five of hearts face-down, crosswise on top of the two of diamonds so that two diamond pips show at the top of the card, but not the diamond pip in the center.)
In general, it’s a fast and fun game with a decent opportunity for skill and a large element of chance in how the cards happen to deal out over any particular game. Sometimes you just can’t hold a bower to save your life. 
(BTW that reminds me. For anyone here who watches the show 24… anyone else suspect a euchre joke in the naming of Kiefer Sutherland’s character – Jack Bauer, with the last name pronounced Bower? )