wild card

or wild·card

[ wahyld-kahrd ]

noun

1. Cards. a card having its value decided by the wishes of the players.
2. a determining or important person or thing whose qualities are unknown, indeterminate, or unpredictable:

   In a sailboat race the weather is the wild card.

3. Sports. an unranked or unproven player or team that is allowed to enter a tournament after regularly qualifying competitors have been selected:

   The committee added several retired champions as wild cards in the tennis championships.

4. Digital Technology. a symbol in a search parameter, usually the asterisk or question mark, that will retrieve all results for another character or other characters in its position:

   The file search is case-sensitive, and wildcards are not supported.

wild card

noun

1. See wild
2. sport a player or team that has not qualified for a competition but is allowed to take part, at the organizers' discretion, after all the regular places have been taken
3. an unpredictable element in a situation
4. computing a symbol that can represent any character or group of characters, as in a filename

Word History and Origins

Origin of wild card¹

First recorded in 1530–40

Idioms and Phrases

An unpredictable person or event, as in Don't count on his support—he's a wild card , or A traffic jam? That's a wild card we didn't expect . This expression comes from card games, especially poker, where it refers to a card that can stand for any rank chosen by the player who holds it. The term was adopted in sports for an additional player or team chosen to take part in a contest after the regular places have been taken. It is also used in computer terminology for a symbol that stands for one or more characters in searches for files that share a common specification. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1900s.

Example Sentences

If Trump sees West Africa through the prism of relations with Moscow, and his planned deal with President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, it will introduce a wild card into the region’s politics.

From BBC

This is just the fifth World Series since the wild card era started in 1995 involving the teams with the best records in each league.

From Los Angeles Times

There’s also a wild card in the list of potential nightmares: What happens if the electoral vote is a tie, 269 to 269?

From Los Angeles Times

We aggregate these outcomes to find the probability of winning the division or a wild card spot, along with winning the World Series.

From Los Angeles Times

Bennett was not present for the Rams’ 24-23 NFC wild card playoff defeat there last season, but he played in numerous hostile environments while leading Georgia to back-to-back national titles.

From Los Angeles Times