Words

card, v.

MALCOLM ROE, of Hove, has been injuncted by the council to stop carding. Any more of it, and he's in the jug. Mr Roe's crime is neither, as Johnson defined it, to "comminute wool with a piece of wood" nor, in Thomas Shelton's 1612 phrase, to "be carded and purged of certain base things".

On the contrary. In a usage absent from the OED, he put tarts' adverts in telephone kiosks: such droll invitations as those in which the phrase bound over has nothing to do with keeping the peace. It's all a question of definition. Others still card: I dialled 01273 XXXXXX and asked a startled, laughing woman if she was envious of the sums now commanded by one who has done more than card in a kiosk - Monica Lewinsky: "No, not at all - good luck to her!"