deuce

From Middle English dewes (“two”), from Anglo-Norman, from Old French deus, from Latin duo.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /djuːs/, /d͡ʒuːs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /duːs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːs

deuce (plural deuces)

1. (card games) A card with two pips, one of four in a standard deck of playing cards.
2. (dice games) A side of a die with two spots.
3. (dice games) A cast of dice totalling two.
4. The number two.
   1. (Canada, US, slang) A piece of excrement.
   2. (Canada, slang) A two-year prison sentence.
5. A hand gesture consisting of a raised index and middle fingers, a peace sign.
6. (tennis) A tied game where either player can win by scoring two consecutive points.
7. (baseball) A curveball.
8. A '32 Ford.
   • 1978, Mayall, Joe. "Driving Impression: Reproduction Deuce Hiboy", in Rod Action, p.26
   • 2012, Pat Ganahl, Lost Hot Rods II: More Remarkable Stories of How They Were Found, page 62:

     It belonged to “the 1932 guy,” who had four or five Deuces sitting in his yard.

This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them! Particularly: “Geisert”

1. (in the plural) 2-barrel (twin choke) carburetors (in the phrase 3 deuces: an arrangement on a common intake manifold).
2. (restaurants, slang) A table seating two diners.

• (piece of excrement): See Thesaurus:defecation

• (dice) ace, trey, cater, cinque, sice

Compare Late Latin dusius (“phantom, specter”); Scottish Gaelic taibhs, taibhse (“apparition, ghost”); or from Old French deus (“God”), from Latin deus (compare deity).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /djuːs/
• (US, Canada) IPA^(key): /duːs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːs

deuce (plural deuces)

1. (epithet) The Devil, used in exclamations of confusion or anger.
   • 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, Catherine:

     Love is a bodily infirmity […] which breaks out the deuce knows how or why

   • 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol:

     To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:

     "Why, Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now - eh?"

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, Sydney: Ure Smith, published 1962, OCLC 751607287, page 65:

     Still bemused by the inexplicable apparition of Podson on that spot, Bradly growled, "How the dooce did you get here?"

• what the deuce

• (etymology) deuce in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• educe