Solitaire has a vocabulary all its own, and if you have ever read a strategy guide and stumbled over words like tableau, stock, or build, you are not alone. The terms are simple once explained, but nobody is born knowing them. This glossary gathers every word you need to understand Klondike solitaire, the game behind Dragon Solitaire, and defines each one in plain language with an example where it helps.
Keep this page handy as a reference while you learn. Whenever a term trips you up in another guide, you can look it up here and get straight back to playing. To see every term in action, open the Dragon Solitaire board and match the words to the parts of the layout as you read.
The Board and Its Areas
These terms name the physical regions of a solitaire layout. Learn them first, because almost every other term refers back to them.
Tableau
The tableau is the main playing area: in Klondike, the seven columns of cards dealt across the middle. Most of the game happens here, uncovering face-down cards and building sequences to feed the foundations.
You will sometimes see the individual columns of the tableau called piles or stacks, and the whole area referred to as the layout or the board. Do not let the varied wording confuse you; they all point to the same seven columns where the bulk of play happens.
Stock
The stock is the face-down pile of leftover cards (24 in Klondike) that you draw from when your tableau moves run out. It is sometimes called the deck or the talon.
Waste
The waste, also called the talon or discard pile, is where cards drawn from the stock land face up. Only the top card of the waste is available to play at any moment.
Foundations
The foundations are the four piles you are trying to fill, one per suit, each built up from Ace to King. Completing all four foundations wins the game.
Foundations are also called home cells, or informally the aces piles, since each one begins with an Ace. Whatever the name, their job is identical: to receive cards in ascending, same-suit order until each suit is complete from Ace through King.
Cards and Their Roles
Some terms describe the cards themselves and the special roles certain ranks play.
- Face-up card: A card whose value you can see and, if the rules allow, play.
- Face-down card: A hidden card in the tableau that turns face up once the card above it is moved away.
- Ace: The lowest card and the one that starts each foundation pile.
- King: The highest card and the only one that may move into an empty tableau column.
- Rank: A card's numeric value or position, from Ace low through the numbers and Jack, Queen, King high.
- Suit: One of the four groups, hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades, that foundations are built by.
Two of these roles carry special weight in strategy. The Ace is the key that unlocks each foundation, so a buried Ace is a high-priority dig; and the King is the only card that can occupy an empty column, which makes Kings the gatekeepers of your most valuable spaces. Keeping an eye on where the Aces and Kings are hiding is a habit worth forming early.
Actions and Moves
These verbs describe the things you actually do during a game. They come up constantly in strategy writing.
Build
To build is to place a card onto another according to the rules. In the tableau you build down in alternating colours (a red card on a black card one rank higher); on the foundations you build up by suit (Ace, Two, Three, and so on).
The direction of building is the thing beginners most often mix up. In the tableau you build down, from higher rank to lower; on the foundations you build up, from lower rank to higher. A quick way to remember it: the tableau descends toward the table, while the foundations climb toward completion.
Draw
To draw is to turn cards from the stock into the waste, either one or three at a time depending on the mode, making new cards available to play. The two modes are compared in our draw 1 vs draw 3 guide.
Redeal
A redeal is turning the emptied waste back over to form a new stock so you can pass through the remaining cards again. Some games limit the number of redeals allowed.
Sequence or Run
A sequence, or run, is a group of consecutive cards in order. In Klondike a valid tableau run descends in rank and alternates colour, and such a run can be moved as a single unit.
The length of run you can move in one action sometimes depends on the version you are playing, but the principle stays constant: the cards must already be in proper descending, alternating-colour order to travel together as a group.
Concepts and Situations
Finally, some terms describe situations and ideas that strategy guides lean on heavily.
- Empty column: A tableau column cleared of all cards. Only a King (or a King-led run) may fill it, which makes empty columns a valuable, flexible resource.
- Alternating colours: The tableau building rule that each card must be the opposite colour (red or black) of the card it sits on.
- Unwinnable deal: A shuffle that cannot be won no matter how well it is played, discussed in our guide on whether every solitaire game is winnable.
- Draw mode: The setting that decides whether you turn one or three stock cards per draw, the biggest single factor in a game's difficulty.
- Patience: The older, chiefly European name for solitaire, reflecting its solitary, contemplative nature.
A handful of other words drift around solitaire writing without formal definitions. A stuck game is one with no legal moves that make progress; a stock pass or redeal is one full cycle through the stock; and auto-complete, or auto-play, describes the moment near the end when every remaining card can be sent home automatically. None of these are essential to learn, but recognising them saves confusion.
Putting the Words to Use
With these terms under your belt, the strategy guides on this site will read much more smoothly. When a guide tells you to prioritise uncovering face-down cards or to guard an empty column for a King, you will know exactly what it means. From here, a natural next step is our solitaire rules for beginners guide to see the vocabulary applied, followed by the tactics in our Klondike strategy guide once the words feel familiar. Keeping the vocabulary fresh in your mind is the quiet foundation on which all of that strategy is built.
Conclusion
The language of solitaire is small and friendly once someone lays it out: the tableau where you play, the stock and waste you draw from, the foundations you fill, and the moves like build, draw, and redeal that carry the game along. Keep this glossary bookmarked and no strategy article will ever lose you again. Now put the words into practice on the Dragon Solitaire board, and when you are ready, explore the different vocabularies of Spider and Yukon. Every game awaits on the dragon-solitaire.com homepage.