Oct 13, 2013
Every week, librarian Judy Woodward compiles the most interesting reference questions and sends them to the Roseville Review. Here's this week's query:
Q. What is bourré?
A. Bourré (pronounced boo-ray) is a card game popular among the French-speaking regions of Louisiana. Similar to the games of Spades or Euchre, it’s almost always played for money. The task in Bourré is to take most of the tricks of a hand and thereby win the pot. Failing that, the player must strive to avoid a “bourré,” which is defined as taking no tricks at all.
Bourré is not to be confused with its close cousin of a word “bourrée.” When spelled with two final ee’s, the word refers to an old French folk dance, which was sometimes used as a musical form, most famously by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Both Bourré and bourrée are derived from a French verb, bourrer, which means “to stuff” or “to cram,” as in filling a pipe or ramming a charge home in a rifle. It’s not clear how so many and such different meanings arise from the same French root. (New Cassell’s French Dictionary and Internet Resources.)