Solitaire vocabulary is old, inconsistent and borrowed from three languages. This is every term you are likely to run into, in plain English, with the variations noted where they exist.
Parts of the board
Term
Meaning
Tableau
The main playing area — the columns of cards you rearrange. From the French for “table” or “board”.
Column / pile
A single stack within the tableau. Also called a cascade, especially in FreeCell.
Foundation
The piles you are building up, usually Ace to King in one suit. Getting every card here wins the game.
Stock
The face-down pile of undealt cards you draw from. Sometimes called the hand.
Waste
Where cards go after you turn them from the stock. Only the top card is playable. Also called the talon.
Reserve
A pile of cards available for play but not built on — the thirteen-card stack in Canfield is the classic example.
Free cell
A single-card holding space. Four of them define FreeCell.
Empty column
A tableau slot with no cards. The most valuable real estate in most solitaire games.
Moves and actions
Term
Meaning
Build
To place a card onto another according to the rules. You build down the tableau and build up the foundations.
Packing
An older word for building down in the tableau. Still common in British sources.
Sequence / run
Consecutive cards in rank order. Whether a run can be moved as a unit depends on the game.
Deal
Both the initial layout and the act of turning cards from the stock. In Spider, a deal puts one card on every column at once.
Redeal
Returning the waste to the stock to go through it again. Games differ on how many redeals you get.
Supermove
Moving several cards at once in FreeCell, using free cells and empty columns behind the scenes. Limited by the formula (1 + free cells) × 2empty columns.
Auto-complete
The button that finishes a decided game for you, sending every remaining card to the foundations.
Turn / flip
Revealing a face-down card, normally automatic when it becomes the top card of a column.
Strategy vocabulary
Term
Meaning
Blocked / buried
A card you need that sits under cards that cannot move yet.
Deadlock
The circular trap that kills most Klondike deals: card A must move before B, and B before A.
Dead deal
A layout with no winning line, however well you play.
Solvable
A deal that has a winning line if you could see every card. Not the same as one you will actually win.
Safe move
A move to the foundations that cannot cost you anything later — an Ace, a 2, or a card whose potential partners are all accounted for.
Digging
Deliberately working through one column to expose its face-down cards.
Knot
Informal, mostly Spider: a pile built across mixed suits that will have to be taken apart one card at a time.
Thoughtful play
A technical term from solitaire research: playing with knowledge of all face-down cards. Used when quoting theoretical win rates.
Solitaire