Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Deuce |
DeuceNoun1. A tie in tennis or table tennis that requires winning two successive points to win the game. 2. The cardinal number that is the sum of one and one or a numeral representing this number. 3. A word used in exclamations of confusion; "what the devil" or "the deuce with it" or "the dickens you say". 4. One of the four playing cards in a deck that have two spots. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "deuce" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1613. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
19th Century Satire | An honest card, in fact the only one that is never known to beat tray. Source: Foolish Dictionary, 1904. |
Literature | Deuce The Kelts called wood-demons dus. (Compare the Latin deus.) "In the popular mythology both of the Kelts and Teutons there were certain hairy wood-demons, called by the former dus, and by the latter scrat (? scratz). Our common names of `Deuce' and `Old Scratch' are plainly derived from these." - Lowell: Among my Books (Witchcraft), p. 109. It played the deuce with me. It made me very ill; it disagreed with me; it almost ruined me. The deuce is in you. You are a very demon. Deuce take you. Get away! you annoy me. What the deuce is the matter? What in the world is amiss?. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted. | |||
| Entry | Source | Expression | Field |
DEUCE | English | Digital Electronic Universal Calculating Engine | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |||
Synonyms: DeuceSynonyms: devil (n), dickens (n), two (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Accompaniment | Noun: duality, dualism; duplicity; biplicity, biformity; polarity. two, deuce, couple, duet, brace, pair, cheeks, twins, Castor and Pollux, gemini, Siamese twins; fellows; yoke, conjugation; dispermy, doublets, dyad, span. |
Amusement | Ace, king, queen, knave, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, trey, deuce; joker; trump, wild card. |
Caprice | Phrase: nil fuit unquain sic inipar sibi; the deuce is in him. |
Deterioration | Damnify; (aggrieve); do one's worst; knock down; deal a blow to; play havoc with, play sad havoc with, play the mischief with, play the deuce with, play the very devil with, play havoc among, play sad havoc among, play the mischief among, play the deuce among, play the very devil among; decimate. |
Excitability | Lose one's temper; break out, burst out, fly out; go off, fly off, fly off at a tangent, fly off the handle, lose one's cool; explode, flare up, flame up, fire up, burst into a flame, take fire, fire, burn; boil, boil over; foam, fume, rage, rave, rant, tear; go wild, run wild, run mad, go into hysterics; run riot, run amuck; battre la campagne, faire le diable a quatre, play the deuce. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Deuce |
| English words defined with "deuce": advantage ♦ Deused, Devil, dickens. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "deuce": Deuce of Cards, Dus ♦ Play the Deuce ♦ Storage Allocation and Coding Program ♦ TENNIS. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Hey, you know a guy around here with a piss yellow deuce coupe, supposed to be hot stuff (American Graffiti; writing credit: George Lucas ; Gloria Katz) | |
Lyrics | Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night (Blinded By The Light (Bruce Springsteen); performing artist: MANFRED MANN) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Deuce High (1926) The Deuce of Spades (1922) Deuce Duncan (1918) A Deuce of a Girl (1916) Playing the Deuce (1915) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
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| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Deuce. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
A Christmas Carol | Dickens, Charles | To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Where the deuce could the mayor be going |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Deuce" is generally used as a noun (proper) -- approximately 70.00% of the time. "Deuce" is used about 50 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (proper) | 70% | 35 | 58,339 |
| Noun (singular) | 28% | 14 | 93,893 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 2% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 50 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "deuce": deuce take you! ♦ how the deuce could i know? ♦ how the deuce did you find it out? ♦ play the deuce ♦ play the deuce with ♦ the deuce a bit! ♦ the deuce is in him ♦ the deuce take it! ♦ there is the deuce to pay ♦ we are in the deuce of a mess ♦ what the deuce is he doing there? ♦ where the deuce ..!. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "deuce": deuce-ace. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "deuce"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | Dysh (duple, twain), Dreq (daemon, demon, devil, Dickens, fiend, heck, heller, hellion, imp, Satan), Barazim (adequation, draw, equalization, equation, stand off, tie). (various references) | |
Arabic | تعادل فى التنس, الشيطان (dickens, the devil), إثنان فى الورق والنرد, شجار عنيف. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | Дявол (Dickens), Двойка, Две Точки, Равен Резултат. (various references) | |
Czech | Shoda (accord, accordance, agreement, community, compliance, concord, conformity, congruence, conjuncture, correspondence, harmony, oneness, parity, unanimity, understanding, union, unity), Èert. (various references) | |
Farsi | جن (Bogey, Elf, Goblin, Spook, Sprite, Urchin), افت (Blight, Downfall, Pest, Pestilence, Plague, Slump), شیطان (Arch, Bogey, Devil, Impish, Mischievous, Naughty, Tempter), دولو, دوخال , بلا (Bale, Calamity, Curse, Disaster, Misadventure, Pest, Plague, Scourge, Terror), بدشانسی (Mischance, Misfortune). (various references) | |
Finnish | kakkonen (two). (various references) | |
French | égalité. (various references) | |
German | Teufel (devil, fiend, demon, devils). (various references) | |
Greek | Διπλό, Διάβολοσ (Dickens), Δυάρι. (various references) | |
Hungarian | kettes (kártyában), Balszerencse (mischance, bad break, bad luck, hard luck, ill luck, misadventure, misfortune, mishap). (various references) | |
Indonesian | dua (duo, two). (various references) | |
Italian | Due (two), Diavolo (devil), diàvolo (deuces, devil, devils), Quaranta Pari, Malanno (ailment, disaster, illness, infirmity, mischief, misfortune). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ジャンプ競技 (dugong, genre, jamboree, jewel, jewelry, joule, Juglar cycle, juice, juicer, juju music, juke-box, jumbo, jumbo-jet, jumbo-size, June bride, junior, junior welter, ski jumping, soft drink). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ジュース (juice, soft drink). (various references) | |
Manx | queig y pheesh, daeed y pheesh, daa (two). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | euceday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | duque em jogos de azar, dois (two), diabo (devil), demônio (archenemy, archfiend, belial, daemon, demon, dickens, fiend, genius, poltergeist), quarenta igual no tênis, praga (Prague, plague, scourge). (various references) | |
Romanian | Dracu (Dickens, parbleu), drace (phooey), ptiu drace (it's a damned shame), Neşansã (down, ill luck), la naiba (botheration, confound it, damnation, dash, dash it all, devil take it, parbleu, zounds), Egalitate De Puncte. (various references) | |
Russian | черт (chert, devil, diablo, Dickens, heck), Двойка, Равный Счет. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | dvojka (two), vrag (devil, satan, scratch: old scratch), izjednačenje, đavo (belial, devil, fiend, hellhound, satan, scratch: old scratch). (various references) | |
Spanish | diablo (demon, devil). (various references) | |
Swedish | tvåa (second, two, two-room flat). (various references) | |
Thai | ไพ่ 2 แต้ม. (various references) | |
Turkish | Dü, Kör Talih (bad luck, doom, ill luck), Beraberlik (coalescence, cooperation, equalization, solidarity, tie, tie up, togetherness, unity), Þeytan (Belial, Dickens, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Satan), Ýkili. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | Двійка, Два Очка, Рівний Рахунок. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | hai (double, dual, duplex, two). (various references) | |
Welsh | andras (curse, devil, evil). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "deuce": deuced, deucedly, deuces. (additional references) | |
| |
"Deuce" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: adeuce, Aeuc, dauc, dauke, daunca, daunce, dause, dceue, deace, Deacey, debue, decem, decuse, Deekie, deic, delce, Delcev, dence, deoch, Dequeen, derce, desce, deucer, deucex, deuche, Deuel, deupe, deush, Deusser, dfuke, dioce, douc, doucer, doucje, Doulce, ducem, ducen, duece, dueche, duete, duoce, dutce, dweeje, edace, edice, Edjupci, Edusei, euc, teuce. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "deuce" (pronounced duw"s) |
| 3 | d uw" s | deduce, Duce, induce, introduce, overproduce, produce, reduce, reintroduce, reproduce, seduce. |
| 2 | -uw" s | abstruse, abuse, caboose, coos, diffuse, disabuse, disuse, excuse, goose, juice, loose, Luce, misuse, moose, mousse, noose, obtuse, profuse, recluse, reuse, sluice, Spruce, truce, use. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: educe. | |
| Words within the letters "c-d-e-e-u" | |
-1 letter: cede, cued, duce. | |
-2 letters: cee, cud, cue, dee, due, ecu. | |
-3 letters: de, ed. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-d-e-e-u" | |
+1 letter: deduce, deuced, deuces, educed, educes, reduce, seduce. | |
+2 letters: bedunce, cudweed, cupeled, decuple, decurve, deduced, deduces, educate, eructed, euchred, exclude, excused, recused, reduced, reducer, reduces, rescued, seclude, secured, seduced, seducer, seduces, succeed, ulcered. | |
+3 letters: abductee, audience, becudgel, becursed, bedunced, bedunces, beuncled, bucketed, caudexes, censured, censused, coendure, cudgeled, cudgeler, cudweeds, cumbered, cuneated, cupelled, curetted, curseder, curveted, debouche, deciduae, decouple, decupled, decuples, decuries, decurved, decurves, deducted, denounce, deucedly, deuteric, duckweed, duecento, ecaudate, educable, educated, educates, educible, eductive, enounced, excluded, excluder, excludes, executed, inductee, lectured, pedicure, peduncle, preclude, precured, prudence, puckered, quenched, recouped, recurred, recurved, reducers, reedbuck, reinduce, relucted, schedule, secluded, secludes, seducers, seducive, succeeds, suckered, tuckered, unchewed, undecked, unfenced, verecund. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
