canasta

A card game similar to rummy and played using two packs, where the object is to meld groups of the same rank.

“Do you know something, Fred?” she announced, “I won four dollars and eighty-five cents playing Canasta this afternoon.” “Canasta!” exclaimed Mr. Grimes, “I didn′t know you could play that silly game.”

Imagine, first, two players who engage in a game of canasta according to a standard set of rules.[…]We may imagine, however, that at a certain moment the two canasta players cease to play canasta and start a discussion of the rules.

A meld of seven cards in a game of canasta.

Groups of seven of a kind are called canastas, and before a player can go out he or his partner must have at least one canasta.