Pip (counting)

This article is about Pip (counting). For other uses of pip, see Pip (disambiguation).

Pips are small but easily countable items. The term is used to describe the dots on dominoes, dice, denote suits, and is the name for the small seeds of some fruits. It could be used as a synonym for dot in most situations, for example morse code.

Playing cards

The Eight of Clubs from a typical Anglo-American deck of cards.

In playing cards, pips are small symbols on the frontside of the cards that determine the suit of the card. A standard 52-card poker deck consists of four suits of thirteen cards each: spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. Each suit contains three face cards – the jack, queen, and king. The remaining ten cards are called pip cards and are numbered from one to ten. (The first card is almost always changed from "one" to "ace" and often is the highest card in the game, followed by the face cards.) Each pip card consists of an encoding in the top left-hand corner (and, because the card is also inverted upon itself, the lower right-hand corner) which tells the card-holder the value of the card. The center of the card contains pips representing the suit. The number of pips corresponds with the number of the card, and the arrangement of the pips is generally the same from deck to deck.

Many of these 52-card poker decks contain a variation on the pip style for the Ace of Spades, often consisting of an especially large pip or even a representative image, along with information about the deck's manufacturer.

Dice

On dice, pips are small dots on each face of a common six-sided die. These pips are typically arranged in patterns denoting the numbers one through six. The sum of opposing faces traditionally adds up to seven. Pips are commonly colored black on white dice, and white on dice of other colors, although colored pips on white dice are not uncommon; Japanese dice often have an enlarged red single pip for the "one" face, while the dice for the game Kismet feature black pips for 1 and 6, red pips for 2 and 5, and green pips for 3 and 4.

Star Trek

In the Science Fiction franchise Star Trek, from Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards, the rank insignia used by Starfleet were a series of small, circular pips displayed on the right collar. A single gold pip denoted an Ensign, a Gold pip and black pip denoted a Lieutenant Junior Grade, two gold pips denoted a Lieutenant and so on.

See also

• Program in Placebo Studies