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DEUCE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
One of the four playing cards in a deck that have two spots
Synonyms:
deuce; two
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("deuce" is a kind of...):
playing card (one of a pack of cards that are used to play card games)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A word used in exclamations of confusion
Example:
the dickens you say
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("deuce" is a kind of...):
exclaiming; exclamation (an abrupt excited utterance)
Sense 3
Meaning:
The cardinal number that is the sum of one and one or a numeral representing this number
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure
Hypernyms ("deuce" is a kind of...):
digit; figure (one of the elements that collectively form a system of numeration)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "deuce"):
craps; snake eyes (expressions used when when two dice are thrown and both come up showing one spot)
brace; couple; couplet; distich; duad; duet; duo; dyad; pair; span; twain; twosome; yoke (two items of the same kind)
Sense 4
Meaning:
A tie in tennis or table tennis that requires winning two successive points to win the game
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("deuce" is a kind of...):
tie (equality of score in a contest)
Context examples:
Who the deuce have you been with?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Oh, you know, deuce take it, said this gentleman, looking round the board with an imbecile smile, we can't forego Blood, you know.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
"Ah! I got it all round. Even you cast me off over there, and I felt just ready to go to the deuce," he began apologetically.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“That comes—as you call it—of being arrant asses,” retorted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know honest air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous slough. I think it most probable—though of course it's only an opinion—that you'll all have the deuce to pay before you get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would you? Silver, I'm surprised at you. You're less of a fool than many, take you all round; but you don't appear to me to have the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
“What the deuce is this?” he shouted, angrily.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Some young fellows, you know, may be a little behind their station, perhaps, in point of education and behaviour, and may go a little wrong, you know, and get themselves and other people into a variety of fixes—and all that—but deuce take it, it's delightful to reflect that they've got Blood in 'em! Myself, I'd rather at any time be knocked down by a man who had got Blood in him, than I'd be picked up by a man who hadn't!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The dry-goods stores were not down among the counting-houses, banks, and wholesale warerooms, where gentlemen most do congregate, but Jo found herself in that part of the city before she did a single errand, loitering along as if waiting for someone, examining engineering instruments in one window and samples of wool in another, with most unfeminine interest, tumbling over barrels, being half-smothered by descending bales, and hustled unceremoniously by busy men who looked as if they wondered 'how the deuce she got there'.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
“What, am I to be dunned in my own private room? Where’s Mellish? Where’s Townshend? What the deuce is Tom Tring doing?”
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
No; what the deuce would you call her for?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
