Club Means a Stick, a Society and a Card Suit
A club is a heavy stick. The society sense and the card suit arrived by two separate routes.
A club is a heavy stick used as a weapon, and also an association of people. The society sense grew from a verb meaning to gather into a mass, as a club head is a mass at the end of a stick; from *clubbing together* to share a cost came the club as an organisation. The card suit is a translation error: the French suit is *trèfle*, a clover, but English named it after the Italian and Spanish suit of batons. So the clubs on a card look like clovers because they are.
- A heavy stick. *A wooden club.*
- An association. *A tennis club.*
- A card suit. *The ace of clubs.*
- A nightclub. *A night out at a club.*
- Old Norse — *klubba*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | club | A club. |
| Plural | clubs | Clubs. |
| Verb | club | Clubbing. |
| Compound | nightclub | A nightclub. |
| Old Norse | klubba | A cudgel. |
- He carried a heavy club.Weapon.
- She joined the chess club.Society.
- He played the ace of clubs.Cards.
Why clubs look like clovers
- The French suit is *trèfle*, a clover, and gives the shape
- The Italian and Spanish suit is batons, and gives the English name
- English combined the French picture with the Latin name
- Spades did the same in reverse, from Italian *spade*, swords
- The shape and name of both suits come from different countries
Old Norse *klubba*, a cudgel. The association sense is from the 1600s, from a verb meaning to gather into a mass.
Why is a card suit called clubs when it looks like a clover?
The shape comes from the French suit of clovers, but the English name comes from the Italian and Spanish suit of batons.
How did club come to mean a society?
From a verb meaning to gather into a mass. People clubbed together to share costs, and the gathering became an organisation.