fan-tan

See also: fantan

English

Alternative forms

• fantan

Etymology

Borrowed from Cantonese 番攤／番摊 (faan¹ taan¹, literally “repeated divisions”).

Noun

fan-tan (uncountable)

1. A Chinese gambling game in which coins or other small objects are placed upon a table, usually under a cup, and the players bet as to what remainder will be left when the sum of the counters is divided by four.
   • 1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 85:

     He came in an said Pack, we were booked for Macau. When we got there, I played fantan in the Lisboa and he crossed over into Zhongshan.

2. A card game in which the cards are played in sequences upon the table, and the winner is the first player to have no cards left.

Translations

a specific gambling game where objects are counted in sets of four

• Chinese:

  Min Nan: 攤／摊 (zh-min-nan) (thoaⁿ)

• Khmer: ធួ (km) (thuə), ថួ (km) (thuə)
• Lao: ຖົ່ວ (thūa)
• Tagalog: capona
• Thai: เล่นถั่ว (len thua), กำถั่ว (kam thua), ถั่ว (th) (thua)

Macanese

Etymology

Borrowed from Cantonese 番攤／番摊 (faan¹ taan¹, literally “repeated divisions”); see English entry.

Noun

fan-tan

1. fan-tan (Chinese card game)

Derived terms

• fantanéro (“someone addicted to fan-tan”)

Related terms

• faichista

References

• https://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm