[TWENTY A. 1 b.]
1. Rugby Football. The line drawn across the ground twenty-five yards from each goal; also, the space enclosed by this.
1877. Field, 24 Feb., 220/2. They were completely penned in their own twenty-five.
1889. Pauline, VIII. 36. The play was constantly in our opponents’ twenty-five.
2. Cards (also twenty-fives): A variety of SPOIL-FIVE, in which the ‘game’ or winning score is twenty-five: cf. FORTY-FIVE b, JINK sb.1 2.
1894. ‘Hoffmann,’ Card & Table Games (1898), 248. A player making all five tricks is said to make a ‘jink,’ and wins the game, whether at twenty-five or forty-five.
1904. Longm. Mag., June, 142. They produced an old pack of cards and played twentyfives.
See also TWENTY C.
