Cotton's work was afterwards incorporated with Seymour's Court-Gamester (first published 1719). The earlier editions contain no Whist, but after the two books were united (about 1734), Seymour says, "Whist, vulgarly called whisk. The original denomination of this game is Whist, [here Seymour is mistaken] or the silent game at cards." And again, "Talking is not allowed at Whist; the very word implies 'Hold your Tongue.'"
Dr. Johnson does not positively derive Whist from the _interjectio silentium imperans_; he cautiously explains Whist to be "a game at cards, requiring close attention and silence." Nares, in his "Glossary," has "Whist, an interjection commanding silence;" and he adds, "That the name of the game of Whist is derived from this, is known, I presume, to all who play or do not play." Skeat ("Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 1882") gives, "Whist, hush, silence; a game at cards * * * named from the silence requisite to play it attentively."
Chatto, however, ("Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards, 1848"), suggests that whisk is derived by substitution from ruff, both of them signifying a piece of lawn used as an ornament to the dress.
The best modern etymologists are of opinion that, whisk and whist, being, like whisper, whistle, wheeze, hush and hist, words of imitative origin, it makes no difference which form is first found. So the received derivation from silence, having a good deal of evidence in its favour, may be accepted until some more conclusive arguments than Chatto's are brought against it.
While Whist was undergoing the changes of name and character already specified, there was for a time associated with it another title, viz., swabbers or swobbers. Fielding, in his "History of the life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild, the Great," records that when the ingenious Count La Ruse was domiciled with Mr. Geoffrey Snap, in 1682, or, in other words, was in a spunging-house, the Count beguiled the tedium of his in-door existence by playing at Whisk-and-Swabbers, "the game then in the chief vogue." Swift, in "The Intelligencer" (No. v, Dublin, 1728), ridicules Archbishop Tenison for not understanding the meaning of swabbers. "There is a known Story of a _Clergy-Man_, who was recommended for a Preferment by some great Man at Court, to A. B. C'T. His Grace said, he had heard that the _Clergy-Man_ used to play at Whisk and Swobbers, that as to playing now and then a Sober Game at Whisk for pastime, it might be pardoned, but he could not digest those wicked Swobbers, and it was with some pains that my Lord _S----rs_ could undeceive him." Johnson defines swobbers as "four privileged cards used incidentally in betting at Whist." In Captain Francis Grose's "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1785), swabbers are stated to be "The ace of hearts, knave of clubs, ace and duce of trumps at Whist." The Hon. Daines Barrington (writing in 1786), says that at the beginning of the century, whisk was "played with what were called _Swabbers_, which were possibly so termed, because they, who had certain cards in their hand, were entitled to take up a share of the stake, independent of the general event of the game." This was probably the true office of the swabbers, the etymology of the word showing it to be allied to sweep, swoop, swab, swap, and to be first cousin to sweepstakes. Swabbers soon went out of general use, but they may still linger in some local coteries. R. B. Wormald writes thus respecting them in 1873:--Being driven by stress of weather to take shelter in a sequestered hostelry on the Berkshire bank of the Thames, he found four persons immersed in the game of Whist: "In the middle of the hand, one of the players, with a grin that almost mounted to a chuckle, and a vast display of moistened thumb, spread out upon the table the ace of trumps; whereupon the other three deliberately laid down their hands, and forthwith severally handed over the sum of one penny to the fortunate holder of the card in question. On enquiry, we were informed that the process was technically known as a 'swap' (qy. swab or swabber), and was _de rigueur_ in all property constituted whist circles."