42 Vocabulary & Lingo

Terms you'll run into playing (or reading about) Texas 42, in the order you'll usually meet them.

Domino / Tile / Bone: One of the 28 pieces in a double-six set. All three words mean the same thing at the table.
Suit: One of the seven numbers, 0 through 6. Every domino belongs to one or two suits based on the numbers on its two ends.
Double: A domino with the same number on both ends (0-0 through 6-6). A double belongs only to its own suit, and is always the strongest domino in that suit.
Runner: A domino that isn't a double, but wins a trick anyway by following behind one you led. It doesn't have to be the suit's next-highest domino on paper -- just whatever's left highest in your hand once the double has pulled the real blockers out of everyone else's. Lead 5-5 and it forces out the 6-5 and 5-4 as players follow suit; if your only other 5 is the 5-3, that 5-3 is now the highest 5 left anywhere and wins clean as your runner. (If you'd held the 6-5 yourself instead, leading it would follow into suit 6, not 5 -- it's only a runner behind a double of its own suit.)
Count / Count Domino: A domino worth bonus points beyond the 1 point every trick is worth: 5-5 and 6-4 are worth 10 each, and 5-0, 4-1, and 3-2 are worth 5 each.
Shake: Shuffling the dominoes face-down before the deal.
Bid: A player's claim, during the bidding round, that their team can win at least that many points (or marks) once trump is named.
Pass: Declining to bid. Once you pass, you're done bidding for that hand.
Mark: The unit the match itself is scored in. A plain bid is worth 1 mark; the match is won by the first team to 7 marks.
Marks Bid (e.g. "2 marks"): A bid to win every trick in the hand, worth that many marks if you pull it off -- and that many marks to the other side if you don't. A much bigger swing than a plain bid.
Strength of Hand (SOH) Bid: A bid that raises by more than it has to, inviting your partner to keep bidding because you have support to offer -- doubles or protected count -- even if you don't necessarily want to win the bid yourself. It's a nudge, not a fixed code: the surprise of an unnecessary raise is what carries the signal. See the strategy guide for more.
Trump: The suit named by the winning bidder. Every domino containing the trump number outranks every domino of every other suit for the rest of the hand.
No Trump (also Follow Me): A contract where the bid winner names no suit as trump at all. Nothing can be trumped in -- the highest domino of whatever suit is led just wins, every time. Doubles are especially strong under it, since nothing exists that could beat one.
Off / Off-Suit: A domino that's neither trump nor part of the suit currently led -- it can't win the trick it's played to.
Lead: The first domino played to a trick. It determines the suit everyone else must try to follow.
Follow Suit: Playing a domino of the suit that was led, which you're required to do if you have one.
Sluff (also Slough): Playing an off-suit domino because you have nothing of the suit led -- discarding rather than following.
Void: Deliberately sluffing away your last domino (or dominoes) of a suit so you're holding none of it going forward. Once you're void in a suit, you're never forced to follow it again -- you're free to trump in or throw whatever you want whenever that suit gets led. That matters most when it's your count dominoes on the line: being void means you get to choose when they come out, instead of being forced to feed them to the opponents on a suit you can't escape. Time it right and a void lets you protect your own count, dump a dangerous count domino safely while your partner's winning, or trump in to set the bidder on a suit they thought was safe.
Trick: One round of four dominoes, one played by each player. The highest trump wins it, or if no trump was played, the highest domino of the suit led.
Hand: One full deal: bidding, naming trump, and playing all 7 tricks.
Set: What happens to the bidding team when they fail to reach their bid. "They got set" -- they score nothing, and the marks go to the other side instead.
Sweep: Winning all 7 tricks in a hand -- what a marks bid requires you to do.