Hearts (, ) (, ) is one of the four

playing card suit In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated ...

s in a deck of

French-suited French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. I ...

and

German-suited playing cards German-suited playing cards are a very common style of traditional playing card used in many parts of Central Europe characterised by 32- or 36-card packs with the suits of Acorns (''Eichel'' or ''Kreuz''), Leaves (''Grün'', ''Blatt'', ''Lau ...

. However, the symbol is slightly different: is used in a French deck while is used in a German deck. This suit was invented in 15th century Germany and is a survivor from a large pool of experimental suit signs created to replace the Latin suits. The standard German-suited system of

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

acorns Acorns may refer to: * Plural of acorn, the nut of the oak tree * Acorns (company) Acorns is an American financial technology and financial services company. Based in Irvine, California, Acorns specializes in micro-investing and robo advice ...

, hearts, and bells appears in the majority of cards from 1460 onwards. There is no evidence for this system prior to this point. The French design was created around 1480 when

French suits French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. In ...

were invented and was a simplified version of the existing German suit symbol for hearts in a German-suited pack. In

Swiss-suited playing cards Parts of Swiss German speaking Switzerland have their own deck of playing cards referred to as Swiss-suited playing cards or Swiss-suited cards. They are mostly used for Jass, the "national card game" of Switzerland. The deck is related to the var ...

, the equivalent suit is

Roses A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

, typically with the following suit symbol: RosendeutschschweizerBlatt

Name

Bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

, for which in Germany the French deck is common, it is called by its French name, . In games using German-suited cards the suit of Hearts is often called "Red" (), e.g. the Unter of Hearts would be the "Red Unter" (''Rotunter'' or ''Rot-Unter'') and the Nine of Hearts the "Red Nine" (''Rotneun'' or ''Rot-Neun''). In the game of Watten, the King of Hearts is the highest

Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

. In

Tiến Lên ''Tiến lên'' (Vietnamese language, Vietnamese: '':wikt:tiến lên, tiến lên'', '':wikt:tiến, tiến'': advance; '':wikt:lên, lên'': to go up, up; ; also romanized Tien Len) is a Card games#Shedding games, shedding-type card game origin ...

, Hearts are the highest-ranked suit. The origin of the term "heart" to describe the

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

, which only very marginally resembles a true

heart The heart is a muscular Organ (biology), organ found in humans and other animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels. The heart and blood vessels together make the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrie ...

, is not known. In general, equivalents in other languages also mean "heart". File:Bay herz.svg, The heart in German suited cards File:Naipe copas.png, The heart in French suited cards

Characteristics

The heart typically has a form of

cardioid In geometry, a cardioid () is a plane curve traced by a point on the perimeter of a circle that is rolling around a fixed circle of the same radius. It can also be defined as an epicycloid having a single cusp. It is also a type of sinusoidal ...

, the lower part of which ends in a point. The symbol is drawn with its tip down, the two lobes of the cardioid pointing upwards. Generally, the hearts are coloured

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

so they can be used in some games as a pair with

Diamonds (suit) Diamonds () () is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. Diamonds along with the other French suits were invented in around 1480. It is the only French suit to not have been adapted from the German deck, ...

, like

Klondike (solitaire) Klondike is a card game for one player and the best known and most popular version of the patience or solitaire family, as well as one of the most challenging in widespread play.Parlett (1979), pp. 94–95. It has spawned numerous variants includin ...

. They form one of the two

major suit In the card game contract bridge, the major suits are spades () and hearts (). The major suits are of prime importance for tactics and scoring as they outrank the minor suits while bidding and also outscore them (30 per contracted trick for majo ...

s in

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

(with spades).

French pattern

The following gallery shows the hearts of a

standard 52-card deck The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, w ...

French-suited playing cards French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are playing cards, cards that use the French Playing card suit, suits of (clovers or clubs ), (tiles or diamonds ), (hearts ), and (pikes or spades ). Each suit contains th ...

. Not shown is the

Knight of Hearts A knight or cavalier is a playing card with a picture of a man riding a horse on it. It is a standard face or court card in Italian and Spanish packs where it is usually referred to as the 'knight' in English, the ''caballo'' in Spanish or the ...

, used in

tarot card games Tarot games are card games played with tarot packs designed for card play and which have a permanent trump suit alongside the usual four card suits. The games and packs which English-speakers call by the French name tarot are called tarocchi ...

: File:01 of hearts A.svg,

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

File:02 of hearts.svg, 2 File:03 of hearts.svg, 3 File:04 of hearts.svg, 4 File:05 of hearts.svg, 5 File:06 of hearts.svg, 6 File:07 of hearts.svg, 7 File:08 of hearts.svg, 8 File:09 of hearts.svg, 9 File:10 of hearts - David Bellot.svg, 10 File:Jack of hearts fr.svg,

Jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, incl ...

File:Queen of hearts fr.svg,

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

File:King of hearts fr.svg,

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

German pattern

The gallery below shows a suit of Hearts from a

of 32 cards. The pack is of the Saxonian pattern: File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - 07.jpg , 7 File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - 08.jpg , 8 File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - 09.jpg , 9 File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - 10.jpg, 10 File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - Unter.jpg , Unter File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - Ober.jpg ,

Ober Ober may refer to: * Ober (playing card), court card in the German and Swiss styles of playing cards * Ober, Indiana, an unincorporated community in Washington Township, Starke County * Oberek (also ''ober''), a lively Polish dance in triple metre ...

File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - King.jpg ,

File:Saxonian Deck - Hearts - Deuce.jpg, Deuce or

Four-colour packs

Four-color deck A four-color deck (US) or four-colour pack (UK) is a deck of Playing card, playing cards identical to the standard French deck except for the color of the Playing card suit, suits. In a typical English four-color deck, hearts are red and spades ...

s are sometimes used in tournaments or online. In such packs Hearts may be: * red Naipe copas

in almost all poker packs * yellow SuitHearts4colors

in some other four-colour packs.

Coding

The symbol ♥ is already in the

CP437 Code page 437 (CCSID 437) is the character set of the original IBM PC (personal computer). It is also known as CP437, OEM-US, OEM 437, PC-8, or MS-DOS Latin US. The set includes all printable ASCII characters as well as some accented letters (dia ...

and therefore also in the

WGL4 Windows Glyph List 4, or more commonly WGL4 for short, also known as the ''Pan-European character set'', is a character repertoire on Microsoft operating systems comprising 657 Unicode characters, two of them for private use. Its purpose is to pro ...

. In

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

, a black heart ♥ and a white ♡ heart are defined:

References

{{German playing cards Card suits Heart symbols