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Lay down mesire

Posted by Glenn Drayton on October 26, 2007

The phrase "a lay down mesire" is missing from these archives. It means that something is a certainty to happen, and is common in Australia/New Zealand slang. e.g. "This election is a lay-down mesire for the Groovy Party". Its origins are in the card game 500. In normal play the idea is to win a number of tricks bid (or more). But if a player has a very poor hand, they can opt to bid to lose every trick in the hand ("mesire" bid), and further if they lay their cards on the table it is an "open mesire" or "lay down mesire", and often carries enough points that the game can be won in a single hand.

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