Meld (cards)
a set of playing cards or tiles that earn a player points and/or allow them to deplete their hand
In card games, a meld is a set of matching cards, typically three or more, that earn a player points and/or allow them to deplete their hand. Melds typically come in sequences of ascending cards belonging to the same suit known as runs (8♠ 9♠ 10♠) or sets/groups of cards of identical rank (8♠ 8♣ 8♥). Other ones may be marriage (e.g. K♥ and Q♥) and bezique (Q♠ and J♦).
Melding is typical in games of the rummy family, such as canasta and gin.
It is also used in other games such as mahjong. Melds are also made in some trick-taking games, such as pinochle and bezique.
See also
Run (cards)
Set (cards)
References
Bibliography
Parlett, David. The Penguin Book of Card Games. London: Penguin (2008).
“Meld (cards)” enters the record as a set of playing cards or tiles that earn a player points and/or allow them to deplete their hand. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Meld, cards and playing can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Meld (cards)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Meld, cards and playing provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6812077. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Meld (cards)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.