deuce

The Devil, used in exclamations of confusion or anger.

Noun card games, games

  1. A card with two pips, one of four in a standard deck of playing cards.
    • You see, Sir, when I look at the Ace it reminds me that there is but one God. The deuce reminds me that the bible is divided into two parts; the Old and New Testaments. And when I see the trey I think of the Father, Son...

    Synonyms: two

  2. A side of a die with two spots.

    Coordinate Terms: ace trey cater cinque sice

  3. A cast of dice totalling two.

    Coordinate Terms: ace trey cater cinque sice

  4. The number two.

    Synonyms: number two big jobs bowel movement cack call of nature crap crapping defecating defecation doing one's ease doing one's easement dump dumping easement hod motion poo pooh poop purging sharn shit shitting spraying

    1. (Canada, US, slang) A bowel movement (the event or the result).

    2. (Canada, slang) A two-year prison sentence.

      • Bisexual male, 28, doing a deuce in a segregated housing unit due to positive HIV test result, seeks correspondence from both genders. - 1988 December 25, Eric Peterson, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News,...
  5. A hand gesture consisting of a raised index and middle finger, a peace sign.
  6. A tied game where either player can win by scoring two consecutive points.
  7. A curveball.
  8. A 1932 Ford.
    • And she was blinded by the light/Oh, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night. - 1973 January 5, “Blinded by the Light” (track 1), in Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., performed by Bruce Springsteen:
    • It belonged to “the 1932 guy,” who had four or five Deuces sitting in his yard. - 2012, Pat Ganahl, Lost Hot Rods II: More Remarkable Stories of How They Were Found, page 62:
  9. Two-barrel (twin choke) carburetors (in the phrase three deuces: an arrangement on a common intake manifold).
  10. A table seating two diners.

    Synonyms: two-top

  11. A twopence coin.
    • It was a shame of the chalk-takers to take their fee without even scoring one little mark; but chalk-takers are inexorable and must be paid their twopence. 'Down with your deuces', was the demand after each pair of...
  12. Douche.

Origin

From Middle English dewes (“two”), from Anglo-Norman, from Old French deus, from Latin duo. The word was used by Ford Motor Co. in 1932 to describe a two-seater car model.

Forms

deuces

Derived

acey-deucey big deuce chuck the deuces deuce coupe deuce court deuce less deuces wild deuce-to-seven lowball drop a deuce play the deuce with pop a deuce the deuce

Noun Entry 2

  1. The Devil, used in exclamations of confusion or anger.
    • Love is a bodily infirmity […] which breaks out the deuce knows how or why - 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, Catherine:
    • To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. - 1843, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol:
    • "Why, Job, you old son of a gun, where the deuce have we got to now - eh?" - 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

    Related: Deuce

  2. Synonym of devil (“something awkward or difficult”).
    • We had a deuce of a time getting here.

    Synonyms: devil

Origin

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

Forms

deuces

Derived

deuced the deuce you say what the deuce