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Definition of House of cards
1. Noun. A speculative scheme that depends on unstable factors that the planner cannot control. "A real estate bubble"
2. Noun. An unstable construction with playing cards. "He built three levels of his cardcastle before it collapsed"
Definition of House of cards
1. Noun. A structure made by laying cards perpendicularly on top of each other ¹
2. Noun. (idiomatic) A structure or argument built on a shaky foundation ¹
¹ Source: wiktionary.com
Lexicographical Neighbors of House Of Cards
Literary usage of House of cards
Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:
1. Scientific Sophisms: A Review of Current Theories Concerning Atoms, Apes by Samuel Wainwright (1883)
"... CHAPTER V. A house of cards. "SPONTANEOUS Generation" therefore, not less
than " Transmutation of Species," is merely " a puerile hypothesis. ..."
2. The Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century by John Latimer (1887)
"The effect was instantaneous, the structure collapsing, according to the expression
of an eyewitness, like a child's house of cards. Not a vestige was left ..."
3. Laura Secord: The Heroine of 1812: a Drama by Sarah Anne Curzon (1887)
"The younger played : Small care had he for Rome's ambitious deeds, Or Parthian
prowess; his whole mind was set To build a house of cards, ..."