Napoleon or
Nap is a straightforward
trick-taking game in which players receive five cards each; whoever bids the highest number of tricks chooses
trumps and tries to win at least their bidden number of tricks. It is a simplified relative of
Euchre, and has many variations throughout Northern Europe. The game has been popular in England for 200 years and has given the language a slang expression, "to go nap", meaning to take five of anything. It may be less popular now than it was, but it is still played in some parts of southern England and in
Strathclyde. Despite its title and allusions, it is not recorded before the last third of the nineteenth century, and may have been first named after
Napoleon III.