faro
UK[ˈfɛərəʊ]US[ˈfɛroʊ]
n
A gambling card game in which players bet on the order in which cards will appear from the dealer's pack.
Etymology
The word 'faro' entered English in the late 17th century from the French game 'pharaon', named after the king depicted on one of the playing cards. 'Pharaon' itself derives from the Latin 'Pharaō', meaning an Egyptian king, which came from the Greek 'Pharaō', and ultimately from the Egyptian 'pr-ʿo', meaning 'great house'. The game's name, therefore, carries a distant echo of ancient Egyptian royalty, transformed through French into the label for a popular game of chance in Europe and America.
Analysis
This word is a loanword from French and is not productively segmented using English morphemes. Its spelling and form were adopted as a whole.
Examples
Faro was one of the most popular banking games in the saloons of the American Old West.
The gambler lost a small fortune playing faro at the riverboat casino.
By the early 20th century, faro had largely been supplanted by other card games like poker.