wild card
noun
1
: an unknown or unpredictable factor
2
: one picked to fill a leftover playoff or tournament berth after regularly qualifying competitors have all been determined
3
usually wildcard
: a symbol (such as ? or *) used in a keyword database search to represent the presence of zero, one, or more than one unspecified characters
Examples of wild card in a Sentence
The joker is a wild card.
Taxes are the wild card in this election.
The team made it into the play-offs as the wild card.
Recent Examples on the Web
The Cubs and Reds also made the playoffs as wild cards.
—
Jay Cohen, Chicago Tribune, 28 Apr. 2026
André 3000, largely thanks to experiments in dress, is often considered the weirdo wild card, and Big Boi the straight man.
—New York Times, 28 Apr. 2026
The one wild card for an event with a temporary 'Draft Theater' that was built just 3 weeks ago, a ferry ferrying people back and forth across a river, and most events outside are the weather.
—Ron Smiley, CBS News, 23 Apr. 2026
The receivers are a group to watch, but there aren’t enough wild cards in that group to single-handedly push the defenders down.
—Nick Harris, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for wild card
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Jay Cohen, Chicago Tribune, 28 Apr. 2026
André 3000, largely thanks to experiments in dress, is often considered the weirdo wild card, and Big Boi the straight man.
—New York Times, 28 Apr. 2026
The one wild card for an event with a temporary 'Draft Theater' that was built just 3 weeks ago, a ferry ferrying people back and forth across a river, and most events outside are the weather.
—Ron Smiley, CBS News, 23 Apr. 2026
The receivers are a group to watch, but there aren’t enough wild cards in that group to single-handedly push the defenders down.
—Nick Harris, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 20 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for wild card
Cite this Entry
“Wild card.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wild%20card. Accessed 2 May. 2026.
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