visiting card

English

visiting card (plural visiting cards)

(historical) A written card which identifies the bearer, presented for introduction when attending a business meeting or formal social gathering.
- 1898, Kate Douglas Wiggin, chapter 8, in Penelope’s Progress […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:
  On the 19th of May we are a maiden castle no longer. Black coats and hats ring at the bell, and pass in and out of the different apartments. The hall table is sprinkled with letters, visiting-cards, and programmes which seem to have had the alphabet shaken out upon them, for they bear the names of professors, doctors, reverends, and very reverends, and fairly bristle with A. M.'s, M. A.'s, A. B.'s, D. D.'s, and LL. D.'s.

(card with personal contact information): at-home card, calling card, name card, meishi, pasteboard (obsolete slang)

business card — see business card