rummy summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see rummy.

rummy, Family of card games. The many variants of rummy make it one of the world’s best-known and most widely played card games. The basic principle of rummy (also spelled rum, rhum, or romme) is to form sets of three or four cards of the same rank (as four 8s, three 6s) or sequences of three or more cards of the same suit (6–5–4–3, all of diamonds, e.g.). Canasta is an unusual type of rummy, in that sequences are not permitted. See also gin rummy.

canasta Summary

Canasta, card game of the rummy family, developed in Buenos Aires, Arg., and Montevideo, Uruguay, in the 1940s and popular in the United States and Great Britain from the 1950s on. The name canasta, from the Spanish word for “basket,” probably derives from the tray placed in the centre of the table