Card terms

[Porges]

Sourcing terminology & nomenclature.

[Porges]

for His Heels/His Nob

Now only used in Cribbage, but it seems that the origin is in the game of All-Fours.

OED definitions:

The 1754 citation is in the context of the game of All-Fours:

For the Vulgar Tongue citation, the 1788 (2nd) edition does not have the term:

But the 1796 (3rd) edition does:

It is worth noting that both of them only give "Knob/Nob: The head.", with no definition relating to nobility or anything else. Also perhaps relevant is the definition for "Noddy":

Another definition worth noting for other reasons is "Pam: the knave of clubs".

The 1853 novel Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell mentions the possible phrase “Jack’s up; a fig [i.e. a trifling amount, is there a more precise definition] for his heels”:

we should surely hear from someone what Mr Hoggins thought and recommended; for, as Miss Matty observed, though Mr Hoggins did say “Jack’s up,” “a fig for his heels,” and called Preference “Pref.” she believed he was a very worthy man and a very clever surgeon.

She also mentions cards in her essay The Last Generation in England, 1849:

The ladies settled down to Preference, and allowed of no interruption; even the tea-trays were placed on the middle of the card-tables, and tea hastily gulped down with a few remarks on the good or ill fortune of the evening. New arrivals were greeted with nods in the intervals of the game; and as people entered the room, they were pounced upon by the lady of the house to form another table. Cards were a business in those days, not a recreation. Their very names were to be treated with reverence. Some one came to - from a place where flippancy was in fashion; he called the knave 'Jack,' and everybody looked grave, and voted him vulgar; but when he was overheard calling Preference - the decorous, highly-respectable game of Preference, - Pref., why, what course remained for us but to cut him, and cut him we did.

The Anti-Jacobin published in 1799 a play “The Rovers” by a ‘Mr. Higgins’, satirizing the work of William Godwin. The second act opens with the characters playing All-Fours:

William Jerdan wrote in his story Hippothanasia in 1837 that Three-Card Loo could also use the “one for his heels” rule:

This story from 1815 indicates that “his heels” was known to have something to do with the fact that the Jack’s heels are prominent on older cards:

[Porges]

(see “jack” thread)