Solitaire has a vocabulary all its own, and it can quietly trip up new players. Guides talk about the tableau, the foundations, the stock and the waste, about building down and packing runs, and if those words are fuzzy, the advice built on them is fuzzy too. This solitaire terms glossary defines every important word in plain English, so you can read any Klondike guide, or the rules of Spider and FreeCell, with complete confidence.

The terms are grouped by the part of the game they describe, moving from the areas of the board to the actions you take to the words specific to particular variants. Keep the free Klondike solitaire game open and point to each part as you learn its name, and the vocabulary will stick far faster.

The Areas of the Board

These terms name the physical regions where cards live during a game. Almost every instruction refers to one of them.

  • Tableau: The main playing area, made up of columns of cards where most of the puzzle-solving happens. In Klondike it is seven columns dealt in a staircase.
  • Column (or pile): A single vertical stack of cards within the tableau. Klondike has seven, FreeCell eight, Spider ten.
  • Foundation: A pile, usually one per suit, where cards are built up in order from Ace to King. Filling every foundation wins games like Klondike and FreeCell.
  • Stock: The face-down reserve of cards you draw from when the tableau offers no move. In Klondike it holds the 24 cards not dealt to the tableau.
  • Waste (or talon): The face-up pile beside the stock where drawn cards land. Its top card is available to play.
  • Free cell: In FreeCell, one of four single-card holding spaces used as temporary storage for cards you need to move out of the way.

The Cards and Their Order

These words describe the cards themselves and how they relate to one another.

  • Rank: A card's numeric value, from Ace (low) through the number cards to Jack, Queen, and King (high).
  • Suit: One of the four families: hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.
  • Colour: The two-way split that matters most in Klondike. Hearts and diamonds are red; clubs and spades are black.
  • Face up and face down: A face-up card is visible and often playable; a face-down card is hidden until exposed.
  • Exposed card: The card at the accessible end of a pile, the one you can currently move or build on.

The Actions You Take

These are the verbs of solitaire, the moves you make turn by turn.

Building and Ordering

  • Build down: To place a card on one that is one rank higher, following the tableau rule. In Klondike this must also alternate colour.
  • Build up: To place a card on the foundations, one rank higher and the same suit, from Ace toward King.
  • Run (or sequence): A group of cards already in correct descending order. A properly ordered run can often be moved together.
  • Packing: Building an ordered run within the tableau, packing cards neatly onto one another to free space and cards.

Handling the Stock and Board

  • Draw (or deal): To turn cards from the stock to the waste. Draw-one flips one card; draw-three flips three, as our guide to draw 1 vs draw 3 Klondike explains.
  • Redeal (or pass): To cycle the waste back into the stock and go through it again, where the rules allow.
  • Auto-complete: A digital convenience that finishes the game automatically once every card is face up and the win is certain.

Words Specific to the Variants

Some terms belong to particular members of the family. Knowing them helps when you move between games.

  • Two-suit and four-suit: Spider difficulty settings that control how many suits are in play, from a gentle one-suit game to a demanding four-suit one.
  • Complete run: In Spider, a full sequence from King down to Ace in one suit, which is removed from the board when finished.
  • Turn-one and turn-three: Alternative names for draw-one and draw-three in Klondike.
  • Winnable (or solvable) deal: A shuffle that can be completed with some sequence of legal moves. Not every deal qualifies, as we discuss in are all Klondike games winnable.

A Few More Useful Terms

Beyond the essentials, a handful of extra words show up often enough to be worth knowing. They tend to appear in strategy discussions rather than basic rules.

  • Blocked card: A card you need that is trapped beneath cards you cannot yet move, a common cause of a stalled or unwinnable deal.
  • Available card: Any card you can legally play right now, whether it is an exposed tableau card or the top of the waste.
  • Empty column (or space): A tableau column with no cards, which in Klondike only a King may fill, and which doubles as valuable workspace.
  • Deadlock: A position with no legal moves left and cards still on the board, meaning the game is lost.
  • Draw pile: Another everyday name for the stock, the face-down cards you turn over during play.
  • Move sequence: The specific order in which you make your moves, which in a game of skill like FreeCell can decide whether a deal is won or lost.

You will not need all of these in a casual game, but they make advanced guides far easier to follow, and they describe situations every player eventually meets at the table.

How the Terms Fit Together in a Turn

Definitions make more sense in motion. Here is a single Klondike turn described using the vocabulary above, from start to finish.

  1. Scan the tableau for an exposed card you can build down onto another column in alternating colour.
  2. Move the run if the cards are already in a valid sequence, packing them onto their new partner.
  3. Flip the face-down card newly exposed at the bottom of the column you just cleared.
  4. Build up any Ace or low card that belongs on a foundation, keeping the foundations balanced.
  5. Draw from the stock to the waste only when no tableau move remains, then repeat.

Read that sequence a few times and the terms stop being jargon and become the natural language of the game. For the full picture of how a turn should be prioritised, see our guide to winning more often.

Using the Glossary Across Games

This vocabulary is shared, with small twists, across the whole family. When you switch to Spider solitaire, terms like column, run, and stock carry over, with complete run and suit count added. In FreeCell solitaire, tableau, foundation, and build down all apply, joined by the free cell. Learning the words once lets you pick up any variant quickly, and our Klondike vs Spider vs FreeCell comparison shows how the same vocabulary describes three different games.

Conclusion

A clear grasp of solitaire vocabulary makes every guide easier to follow and every move easier to plan. The board breaks into the tableau, foundations, stock, and waste, with free cells in FreeCell; the cards carry rank, suit, and colour; and the actions are building up and down, packing runs, drawing, and redealing. Learn these words once and you can read the rules of any patience game with ease. Put the vocabulary into practice on our free Klondike solitaire game, and explore every guide on the klondikesolitaire.info homepage.