in Egypt, and probably arrived first in Spain since the earliest European mention of playing cards appears in 1371 in a Catalan language rhyme dictionary which lists naip among words ending in -ip. According to Trevor Denning, the only attested meaning of this Catalan word is "playing card". This suggests that cards may have been "reasonably well known" in Catalonia at that time, perhaps introduced as a result of maritime trade with the Mamluk rulers of Egypt.

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