poker

• n. ポーカー; カードゲーム; （棒で）突く人
• vt.焼き印を押す

poke「突く」、-er「動作を与える」から、カードゲームを指す言葉として使われる。ポーカーの語源は定かではないが、ギャンブルの常套手段であるラッシュ（自慢話）から派生したpokeが、後にこのカードゲームを指すようになったのかもしれない。

poker

poker: English has two words poker. The earlier, poker for a fire [16], is simply the agent noun formed from poke [14], a verb borrowed from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German poken ‘thrust, hit’. The card-game name [19] originated in the USA, but it is not clear where it came from: one suggestion is that it is connected with German pochen ‘brag’.

poker (n.1)

"the iron bar with which men stir the fire" [Johnson], 1530s, agent noun from poke (v.).

poker (n.2)

card game, 1834, American English, of unknown origin, perhaps from the first element of German Pochspiel, name of a card game similar to poker, from pochen "to brag as a bluff," literally "to knock, rap" (see poke (v.)). A popular alternative theory traces the word to French poque, also said to have been a card game resembling poker. "[B]ut without documentation these explanations are mere speculation" [Barnhart]. The earlier version of the game in English was called brag. Slang poker face (n.) "deadpan" is from 1874.

A good player is cautious or bold by turns, according to his estimate of the capacities of his adversaries, and to the impression he wants to make on them. 7. It follows that the possession of a good poker face is an advantage. No one who has any pretensions to good play will betray the value of his hand by gesture, change of countenance, or any other symptom. ["Cavendish," "Round Games at Cards," dated 1875]

---

To any one not very well up in these games, some parts of the book are at first sight rather puzzling. "It follows," we read in one passage, "that the possession of a good poker face" (the italics are the author's) "is an advantage." If this had been said by a Liverpool rough of his wife, the meaning would have been clear to every one. Cavendish, however, does not seem to be writing especially for Lancashire. [review of above, "Saturday Review," Dec. 26, 1874]

1. In business a poker face can be very useful.

ビジネスシーンでは、黙っていると非常に有用です。

2.He had been showing off for her at the poker table.

牌卓の上で彼はずっと彼女の前で自分を表現していた。

3.He swiped me across the shoulder with the poker .

彼は私の肩を火かき棒で殴った。

4.The officer listened, poker -faced.

その役人は無表情に聞いていた。

5.His expressions varied from poker -faced to blank.

彼の表情は生真面目で茫然としている間に変幻している。