Trump \Trump\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Trumped}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Trumping}.] To play a trump card when one of another suit has been led.
Trump \Trump\, v. t. To play a trump card upon; to take with a trump card; as, she trumped the first trick.
Trump \Trump\, n. [OE. trumpe, trompe, F. trompe; probably fr. L. triumphare to triumph, to exult, hence, probably, to make a joyous sound or noise. See {Triumph}, v. i. & n., and cf. {Trombone}, {Tromp}, {Trump} at cards, {Trumpery}, {Trumpet}, {Trunk} a proboscis.] A wind instrument of music; a trumpet, or sound of a trumpet; -- used chiefly in Scripture and poetry.
We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. --1 Cor. xv. 51, 52.
The wakeful trump of doom. --Milton.
Trump \Trump\, v. t. [F. tromper to deceive, in OF., to blow a trumpet, se tromper de to mock. See {Trump} a trumpet.] 1. To trick, or impose on; to deceive. [Obs.] ``To trick or trump mankind.'' --B. Jonson.
2. To impose unfairly; to palm off.
Authors have been trumped upon us. --C. Leslie.
{To trump up}, to devise; to collect with unfairness; to fabricate; as, to trump up a charge.
Trump \Trump\, v. i. [Cf. OF. tromper. See {Trump} a trumpet.] To blow a trumpet. [Obs.] --Wyclif (Matt. vi. 2).
Trump \Trump\, n. [A corruption of triumph, F. triomphe. See {Triumph}, and cf. {Trump} a trumpet.] 1. A winning card; one of a particular suit (usually determined by chance for each deal) any card of which takes any card of the other suits.
2. An old game with cards, nearly the same as whist; -- called also {ruff}. --Decker.
3. A good fellow; an excellent person. [Slang]
Alfred is a trump, I think you say. --Thackeray.
{To put to one's trumps}, or {To put on one's trumps}, to force to the last expedient, or to the utmost exertion.
But when kings come so low as to fawn upon philosophy, which before they neither valued nor understood, it is a sign that fails not, they are then put to their last trump. --Milton.
Put the housekeeper to her trumps to accommodate them. --W. Irving.
But Europe's diversity is also a trump card.
But GE's ready to trump all bids with a $74-a-share offer of its own."
Now, another strong performance could be the trump card Republicans need to win over doubters and lift the presidential ticket to where it can't be caught before November.
But Iraq, so long as it lived by the ceasefire, was deprived of its military trump card: a technologically superior air force capable of significantly damaging Iranian oil facilities.
Military force is the trump suit in the game of nations, and the wise player wishes to see as many of these cards in his own hand as possible.
It is not plausible to talk about the need for glasnost and at the same time try to trump our bourgeois liberties with their socialist success in the social and economic spheres.
"The veto will be the only trump card," he said.
The West would be fatally inhibited in using its trump card of technology, while the Soviets would have free use of their advantage of mobilizing huge military manpower through something close to slave labor.
Here is a qualitative argument posing as a quantitative trump.