Hearts Glossary
Every Hearts game leans on the same handful of words: trick, lead, following suit, void. Once you know them, the rules for any variant read like plain English. This glossary defines the terms you will meet across the whole Hearts family, from the classic game to the tricky corners of Black Maria and Spot Hearts.
If you are brand new, skim this page before the rules. You do not need to memorize anything - just get a feel for the vocabulary, then read the full Hearts rules or the FAQ and the words will already make sense. Each term below has its own link, so other pages can point straight to a definition.
💡 Tip: Learn the four core terms first - trick, lead, following suit, and void. Almost every rule you read is built from those four ideas.
The basics
Deck
A full set of 52 playing cards in four suits. Every Hearts variant uses one deck, dealt out completely: 13 cards to each of the four players. Nothing is left over and nothing is hidden in a draw pile.
Suit
One of the four card families: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Suit is everything in Hearts - you must play the suit that was led if you can, and the penalty cards live in hearts and spades.
Rank
A card's value within its suit, from 2 (low) up through 10, then Jack, Queen, King, and Ace (high). Note that the Ace is high in Hearts, so the Ace of a led suit beats every other card in it.
Hand (deal)
One full deal of 13 tricks, from the pass to the final card. It also means the 13 cards you hold. A game of Hearts is a series of hands, played until someone reaches the ending score.
Trick
One round of play where each player adds one card, going clockwise. The highest card of the suit that was led wins the trick, collects any penalty points in it, and leads the next one. Every hand has exactly 13 tricks.
Trick-taking game
The family of card games built on tricks - Hearts, Spades, Bridge, and Euchre are all members. Hearts is unusual because it is an avoidance game: most tricks are things you want someone else to win.
Lead
To play the first card of a trick. The lead sets the suit everyone else must follow. The holder of the two of clubs leads the first trick of every hand; after that, whoever wins a trick leads the next.
Following suit
The core rule of play: you must play a card of the led suit if you have one. Only when you are out of that suit may you play something else. Following suit is what makes voids so valuable.
Void
Having no cards in a suit. When that suit is led, you may play anything - including a penalty card you want to get rid of. Creating a void early (often by passing away a short suit) is one of the strongest moves in Hearts.
Renege (revoke)
Failing to follow suit when you could have - playing off-suit while still holding a card of the led suit. In casual play it's an honest mistake to fix; in serious play it carries a penalty. Online, the game simply won't let you do it.
Penalty card (point card)
Any card that adds to your score when you win it in a trick. In classic Hearts that means every heart (1 point each) and the Queen of Spades (13). Variants change the list: Omnibus adds a bonus jack, and Black Maria makes the Ace and King of Spades penalties too.
No trump
Hearts has no trump suit - no suit outranks the others. The only way to win a trick is with the highest card of the suit that was led, which is exactly why a void is so freeing: off-suit cards can never win a trick.
Passing and play terms
Passing
Before each hand, every player chooses three cards to pass face down to another player. The direction rotates: left, then right, then across, then a hold hand with no pass. Passing away high spades and creating voids are the classic goals.
Hold hand
The fourth hand in the passing rotation, with no pass at all. You play exactly what you were dealt. Hold hands reward players who can work with a flawed hand - there's no passing away that dangerous Queen.
Two of clubs
The card that starts every hand. Whoever holds the 2♣ must lead it on the first trick. That makes the first trick predictable: everyone follows with clubs, and no penalty cards are allowed on it.
First-trick rule
On the opening trick, no penalty cards may be played - no hearts and no Queen of Spades, even if you are void in clubs. It guarantees every hand at least one safe trick before the danger starts.
Breaking hearts
Hearts are "broken" the first time a heart is discarded on a trick of another suit. Until then, no player may lead a heart. Once broken, hearts may be led like any other suit - which changes the whole feel of the hand.
Slough (discard)
To throw off a card when you can't follow suit - pronounced "sluff." Sloughing is how penalty cards find their victims: void in the led suit, you drop the Queen of Spades or a fat heart on whoever is winning the trick.
Ducking
Deliberately playing a low card to lose a trick you could have won. Ducking is the quiet engine of good Hearts play: winning tricks is usually bad, so you slide under the highest card whenever the trick looks dangerous.
Smoking out the queen
Repeatedly leading spades to force the Queen of Spades out of hiding. If you hold only safe spades (or none), each spade lead squeezes the player guarding the Queen until she has to fall - ideally on somebody else.
Painting a trick
To slough a heart onto a trick someone else is winning - "painting" it with points. A trick can go from harmless to expensive in one card, which is why leading a high card late in a hand is asking to get painted.
Bleeding spades
Another name for leading spades again and again to drain the suit and flush out the Queen. Safe if your own spades are low, dangerous if you're the one holding the Queen with little protection.
Guarded queen
Holding the Queen of Spades with enough low spades to protect her. Each low spade lets you follow a spade lead without playing the Queen. A "bare" or lightly guarded Queen, by contrast, can be smoked out in a trick or two.
Short suit
A suit where you hold very few cards - one or two. Short suits are raw material for voids: pass those cards away or play them early, and soon you can slough penalty cards whenever that suit is led.
Counting cards
Keeping track of which cards have already been played - especially the hearts, the high spades, and who showed a void. You don't need perfect memory: just tracking whether the Queen of Spades is out, and how many hearts are gone, puts you ahead of most players.
Scoring and winning terms
Black Lady
The classic nickname for the Queen of Spades, worth 13 points - half a hand's penalty in one card. "Black Lady" is also an American name for the whole game of Hearts played with the Queen as a penalty card.
Black Maria
The British name for the Queen of Spades, and the name of the British variant built around her: the Ace of Spades costs 7, the King 10, and the Queen 13, on top of the hearts, with three cards always passed to the right.
Shooting the moon
Taking all 26 penalty points in one hand - every heart plus the Queen of Spades. Instead of scoring 26, you score 0 and each opponent gets 26 added. The biggest swing in the game, and the riskiest: miss a single heart and you've simply wrecked your own score.
Shooting the sun
A rarer, bolder cousin of the moon: winning all 13 tricks, not just all the points. Rule sets that recognize it usually award a bigger penalty to opponents, often 39 points each. Mostly a house-rule flourish, but a glorious one.
Moon defense
Taking a heart on purpose to stop a moon shot. If one player has swept up every point so far, grabbing a single heart costs you 1 point but saves you from 26. Spotting the moon attempt early enough to defend is a real skill.
Game to 100
The standard ending condition: hands are played until any player's total reaches 100 points, and then the lowest score wins. Spot Hearts, with its bigger hands, plays to 500 instead.
Lowest score wins
The upside-down heart of the game: points are bad, so the winner is the player with the fewest. On Hearts.now leaderboards, ties on points are broken by time - the faster player ranks higher.
Daily deal (seed)
A single shared deal that everyone plays on the same day, generated from a fixed seed so every player gets identical cards. Try today's Daily Challenge - one hand, fewest points wins.
Shuffle
To randomize the deck order before dealing. A digital shuffle uses a seed number, which is how a daily deal - or a multiplayer race - can hand the exact same cards to every player.
Variant terms
Omnibus (Jack of Diamonds)
The variant where the Jack of Diamonds is worth minus 10 points to whoever wins it in a trick. It adds a prize to a game that is otherwise all penalties. Play it here: Omnibus Hearts.
Spot Hearts
The variant where every heart counts its pip value: 2 through 10 at face value, Jack 11, Queen 12, King 13, Ace 14, with the Queen of Spades at 25 - 129 points per hand, played to 500. Try Spot Hearts for the full swing.
Pip value
A card's face number used as its score. The pips are the small suit symbols on a card - a 7 of hearts has seven of them. In Spot Hearts, taking the 7♥ costs 7 points, not 1.
Kitty
In some table-play variants with 3 or 5 players, the leftover cards from the deal set aside face down. They usually go to whoever wins the first trick, points and all. With exactly four players the deck splits evenly, so classic four-player Hearts has no kitty.
No Passing
A way to play classic Hearts with the passing phase skipped entirely - every hand is a hold hand. Great for learning the flow of play. On Hearts.now it's the second mode tab on the home page.
Pass & Play
The standard mode on Hearts.now: full rotation passing (left, right, across, hold) followed by normal play. It's the complete classic game, decisions and all.
That is the core vocabulary of Hearts. Keep this glossary open in a tab the first few times you play, and the terms will stick fast. Ready to put them to use? Jump into a classic game of Hearts, or browse the full lineup on the more games page.