long suit

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long suit

1. Games The suit in which a player holds the most cards in a given hand.

2. The personal quality or talent that is one's strongest asset.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

long suit

1. (Card Games)

a. the longest suit in a hand of cards

b. a holding of four or more cards of a suit

2. informal an outstanding advantage, personal quality, or talent

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

long′ suit`

a. the suit in which the most cards are held in a hand.

b. (in bridge) a suit in which four or more cards are held in a hand.

2. the quality, activity or endeavor in which one excels: Diligence is not his long suit.

[1875–80]

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Noun	1.	long suit - in a hand, the suit having the most cards aggregation, collection, accumulation, assemblage - several things grouped together or considered as a whole deal, hand - the cards held in a card game by a given player at any given time; "I didn't hold a good hand all evening"; "he kept trying to see my hand" strong suit - a long suit including high cards
	2.	long suit - an asset of special worth or utility; "cooking is his forte" forte, metier, speciality, specialty, strong point, strong suit, strength asset, plus - a useful or valuable quality green fingers, green thumb - a special ability to make plants grow

long suit

noun

Something at which a person excels:

forte, métier, specialty, strong point, strong suit.

Slang: bag, thing.

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References in classic literature ?

In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited.

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Upon what I said in relation to our courts of justice, his majesty desired to be satisfied in several points: and this I was the better able to do, having been formerly almost ruined by a long suit in chancery, which was decreed for me with costs.

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Simpson spent little time with his family, owing to certain awkward methods of horse-trading, or the "swapping" of farm implements and vehicles of various kinds,-- operations in which his customers were never long suited. After every successful trade he generally passed a longer or shorter term in jail; for when a poor man without goods or chattels has the inveterate habit of swapping, it follows naturally that he must have something to swap; and having nothing of his own, it follows still more naturally that he must swap something belonging to his neighbors.

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The Browning Hi Power always had a solid rep for reliability, but accuracy was not its long suit, so we went to the bench with the improved Nighthawk version.

Browning Hi Power: a splendid iteration of a classic 9MM

"Leonid McGill shows a reasonably deft hand at solving the load of mysteries that come at him in the new book, but vigour is clearly his long suit, the quality that makes him such a weirdly entertaining character." JACK BATTEN

And Sometimes I Wonder About You: A Leonid McGill Mystery

Close ties aren't your long suit these days, yet you are getting along better than ever with your boss or someone connected with work.

STARS

Dignity ain't our long suit in 21st-century American politics or, for that matter, 21st-century anything else.

Newt rocks!

Wearing a blackish grey shirwani - a long suit worn by grooms in Pakistan-Younis smiled all down the runway in his first-ever appearance in a fashion show in Karachi on Saturday, while Gul wore an off-white shirwani, thenews.com.pk reported.

Cricketers turn heads on catwalk

Of course, criminals being criminals, any ethical sine qua non is not exactly playing to a long suit. [paragraph] In the corporate sphere, price-fixing is the apex of criminal collusion--an unambiguous, egregious offense, and one that requires all participants to keep mum.

Cargo cartel: governments scrutinize the air transport industry's price-fixing practices

The notion that Chinese White would be well suited by 1m4f did not just stem from the record of her sire; her dam Chiang Mai, successful up to 1m3f, clearly stayed the trip when tried at just under 2m, and stamina seemed to represent her long suit. But pedigree can only ever offer a rough-and-ready guide to what may be in the genes and it is only the individual that can tell the tale.

Patience rewarded by a mare whose sire's offspring need time

There's no doubt cell phones and other mobile devices have chipped away at newspapers' strength, but portable news has never been newspapers' long suit.

A daunting look back: how does my 1993 column on newspapers and technology hold up?

They are incredible animals, but judgment does not seem to be their long suit. They are task-driven to the extreme, kinda like me.