Vocabulary
The words people actually use at a domino table. You will hear all of these at a table and most of them nowhere else.
- ArmFives
- One of the ends of a Fives board that you can play onto.
- BonesTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- The dominoes. Nobody at a real table says "tiles".
- CountTexas 42
- The five bones worth points: the 5-5 and 6-4 are ten each, and the 5-0, 4-1 and 3-2 are five each. Thirty-five points of count, plus one for each of the seven tricks, is where 42 gets its name.
- CutthroatFives
- Playing for yourself instead of with a partner.
- Domino!Fives
- Called when you play your last bone. It ends the hand and it is meant to be said out loud.
- DoublesTexas 42 · Moon
- The seven bones with the same number on both halves. Within its own suit the double is the highest bone there is, and a table can also name doubles as the trump suit outright.
- DrawTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Taking your bones off the shaken pile.
- Follow meTexas 42 · Moon
- No trump at all — every suit is worth the same and the highest bone of the led suit takes it. Also called "no trump".
- KnockFives
- To pass in Fives because you cannot play. You knock on the table — hence the name.
- MarkTexas 42
- One game point in 42. Make your bid and you take a mark; get set and the other side takes it. Most games go to seven.
- MoonMoon
- The top bid — all seven tricks, and the reason the game is called what it is.
- NelloTexas 42
- A bid to lose every single trick. Your partner turns their bones face down and sits the hand out. Texas spells it a dozen ways — nillo, nil, low, nullo — but Nello is where the published rules land.
- OffTexas 42
- A bone that is not a trump or a double — what you throw when a trick is already lost. An off with count on it is the one that hurts, so those are the ones to be rid of early.
- PlungeTexas 42
- The same, off four doubles, for four marks and up. A gamble by design.
- SetTexas 42 · Moon
- To beat a bid. "We set them" means the bidding side did not bring home what they promised, and the mark goes the setter’s way.
- SevensTexas 42
- A contract where there is no trump and everyone must play the bone closest to seven pips. Closest takes it.
- ShakeTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Shuffling them face down with your hands flat on the table. "Shake ’em!" is how it gets called, and it is the moment the rules stop being up for discussion.
- ShakerTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Whoever shook the bones this hand. The bid starts to their left.
- SluffTexas 42 · Moon
- To throw a bone away on a trick you have given up on — an off if you have one, never a ten.
- SpinnerFives
- The first double laid in Fives. Both its ends play, so the board grows four arms instead of two.
- SplashTexas 42
- A bid off three doubles where your partner names the trump on their own hand alone, and between you, you take all seven.
- Table talkTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Two things, and the second is a joke about the first. At a table: saying or doing anything that tells your partner something the bidding and the play have not — a sigh over a bad hand, "you sure?", a look held a second too long. However friendly it sounds it is cheating, and it is why a serious table plays quiet. In this app: the chat at an online table, named after the thing you are not supposed to do, deliberately. Say what you like in it — it is the conversation you would have out loud at a kitchen table. You can mute anybody, which only affects your own screen and tells them nothing, and whoever opened the table can turn it off for everyone.
- The HallTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Where a great deal of Texas 42 actually gets played: a KC hall, a VFW, a fire station, a church annexe with folding tables.
- The railTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- Watching a table you have no chair at. Open the code for a table that is already full and you land here — you see the tricks, the score and who is playing what, and you hold no bones, because you are not in the hand.
- TrickTexas 42 · Fives · Moon
- One round: one bone from each player. Whoever laid the best one wins the trick and stacks the four dominoes.
- TrumpTexas 42 · Moon
- The suit that beats every other suit. The winning bidder names it.
- Walk the trumpsTexas 42 · Moon
- Leading trump over and over as the bidder, to strip the other side of the trump that would otherwise take your count later.
- WalkerTexas 42 · Moon
- A bone that will take a trick whenever you lead it, because nothing better is left in its suit.
- WidowMoon
- The bone left face down in the middle after the deal. Whoever wins the bid takes it into hand, then buries one of their eight face down before naming trumps.