solitaire

Borrowed from French solitaire, ultimately from Latin sōlitārius. Doublet of solitary.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɒl.ɪˌtɛə(ɹ)/

  Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑ.ləˌtɚ/

solitaire (countable and uncountable, plural solitaires)

1. A person who lives alone; a recluse or hermit.

   Synonym: hermit

   • 1722-1723, Alexander Pope, letter to a lady

     […] he really wishes he had never beheld you, nor yours. You have spoiled him for a solitaire, and a book, all the days of his life; and put him into such a condition, that he thinks of nothing, and enquires of nothing but after a person who has nothing to say to him, and has left him for ever […]

2. (board games) A game for one person, played on a board with pegs or balls, in which the object is, beginning with all the places filled except one, to remove all but one of the pieces by "jumping", as in draughts.
   • 1979, R. C. Bell, Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, revised edition, New York: Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 100:

     The early French solitaire boards were marked with thirty-seven holes instead of the modern board's thirty-three; and the problems were more difficult.

3. (card games, chiefly US) Any of various card games that can be played by one person.

   Synonym: (elsewhere) patience

   • 2006 February 10, Winnie Hu, “Solitaire Costs Man His City Job After Bloomberg Sees Computer”, in The New York Times‎:

     Mr. Greenwood said yesterday that he always finished his work in a timely fashion, and that he played solitaire only when there was nothing else left to do, usually a few times a week or during lunch breaks.

   • 2013 February 23, Francine Prose, “Solitaire: Me vs. Me”, in The New York Times‎:

     I learned to play solitaire as a child. Its advantages over other games were obvious, even then. No need to persuade a friend to play or explain the boring rules, no hard feelings when someone won or lost, no lessons required, no costly equipment to badger my parents into buying. I could play whenever and wherever I wanted. All I needed was a deck of cards.

4. Ellipsis of Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), an extinct bird related to the dodo.
5. Ellipsis of Réunion solitaire (Raphus solitarius, now Threskiornis solitarius), an extinct bird formerly believed to be related to the dodo.

   Synonym: (now preferably) Réunion ibis

6. One of several American species of bird in the genus Myadestes in the thrush family.
7. (jewelry) A single gem, usually a diamond, mounted in a piece of jewellery by itself.
   • 2006, Clare Phillips, editor, Bejewelled by Tiffany, 1837–1987, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 102:

     The Times reported ‘two pendant earrings formed of diamond solitaires of great splendor, supporting pear-shaped pearls of proportionate value, capped with brilliants. […] ’

8. (obsolete) A black neck ribbon worn with a bag wig in the 18th century.
   • 1771, [Tobias Smollett], The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume II, London: […] W. Johnston, […]; and B. Collins, […], →OCLC, page 88:

     The fellow wears a ſolitaire, uſes paint, and takes rappee with all the grimace of a French marquis.

• spider solitaire
• Townsend's solitaire

solitaire (comparative more solitaire, superlative most solitaire)

1. Living or being alone; solitary.

• solitary

• Oxford English Dictionary

• oralities

Borrowed from Latin sōlitārius. In Middle and Old French there existed the words soltain, soutain, inherited from Vulgar Latin *sōlitānus, from Late Latin sōlitāneus.

• IPA^(key): /sɔ.li.tɛʁ/

• Audio

  (file)

solitaire (plural solitaires)

1. solitaire, solitary (living alone or being by oneself)

• guêpe solitaire
• ver solitaire

• “solitaire”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• isolerait, toilerais