Cribbage has a language all its own — heels, nobs, muggins, skunks. Here’s a plain-English glossary of the terms you’ll hear at the table, so nothing throws you mid-game. Terms are listed alphabetically.
Your rear peg — the one marking your previous score. Because each player leapfrogs two pegs up the board, the back peg shows where you were before your last count.
The extra four-card hand formed from both players’ discards. It belongs to the dealer, who scores it last. See What Is the Crib?
The card cut and turned face-up after the crib is set. It counts toward both players’ hands and the crib when scoring.
The player who deals the hand and owns the crib. The dealer always counts last — an advantage worth protecting.
Any combination of cards totaling 15, worth 2 points. Face cards count as 10. See Cribbage Scoring Explained.
Four cards of the same suit in hand (4 points), or five including the starter (5 points). In the crib, only a five-card flush counts.
Called during pegging when you can’t play a card without passing 31. Your opponent pegs 1 for the go (or continues if they still can play). See Cribbage Pegging Rules.
When the starter card itself is a Jack, the dealer immediately pegs 2 points.
Holding the Jack of the same suit as the starter, in your hand or the crib, scores 1 point. Sometimes spelled “nibs.”
An optional rule that lets your opponent claim any points you overlooked in your own count. See Muggins in Cribbage.
Two of a kind = 2 points; three of a kind (pair royal) = 6; four of a kind (double pair royal) = 12.
The play phase, where players alternately lay down cards and score as they go (for fifteens, pairs, runs, 31, and the go). Also the act of moving your pegs.
The two markers each player advances up the board to track score, leapfrogging one ahead of the other.
The player who is not the dealer. The pone always counts their hand first.
Three or more consecutive cards, scoring 1 point per card. Suit doesn’t matter for a run.
The counting phase after pegging, when each hand and the crib are scored. (“The play” is pegging; “the show” is the count.)
A skunk is winning while your opponent is still under 91 (a 31+ margin); a double skunk is winning with them under 61. Often counts as extra games. See Skunk Rules.
Another name for the cut card turned up before pegging — it counts in every hand and the crib.
The 120th hole — one short of the 121 needed to win. Sitting in the stinkhole means any single point wins the game.
Hitting exactly 31 during pegging scores 2 points. You can never go above 31 — if you can’t keep under it, you call “go.”
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