CARD
Card, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Carded; p. pr. & vb. n. Carding.]
Defn: To play at cards; to game. Johnson.
CARD Card, n. Etym: [F. carde teasel, the head of a thistle, card, from L. carduus, cardus, thistle, fr. carere to card.]
1. An instrument for disentangling and arranging the fibers of cotton, wool, flax, etc.; or for cleaning and smoothing the hair of animals; — usually consisting of bent wire teeth set closely in rows in a thick piece of leather fastened to a back.
2. A roll or sliver of fiber (as of wool) delivered from a carding machine. Card clothing, strips of wire-toothed card used for covering the cylinders of carding machines.
CARD
Card, v. t.
1. To comb with a card; to cleanse or disentangle by carding; as, to card wool; to card a horse. These card the short comb the longer flakes. Dyer.
2. To clean or clear, as if by using a card. [Obs.] This book [must] be carded and purged. T. Shelton.
3. To mix or mingle, as with an inferior or weaker article. [Obs.] You card your beer, if you guests being to be drunk. — half small, half strong. Greene.
Note: In the manufacture of wool, cotton, etc., the process of carding disentangles and collects together all the fibers, of whatever length, and thus differs from combing, in which the longer fibers only are collected, while the short straple is combed away. See Combing.