Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A platform extending horizontally from one side of a ship to the other.
- n. A platform or surface likened to a ship's deck.
- n. A roofless, floored structure, typically with a railing, that adjoins a house.
- n. The roadway of a bridge or an elevated freeway.
- n. A pack of playing cards.
- n. A group of data processing cards.
- n. A tape deck.
- n. Slang A packet of narcotics.
- v. To furnish with or as if with a deck.
- v. Slang To knock down: He decked his sparring partner.
- idiom. clear the deck Informal To prepare for action.
- idiom. hit the deck Slang To get out of bed.
- idiom. hit the deck Slang To fall or drop to a prone position.
- idiom. hit the deck Slang To prepare for action.
- idiom. on deck On hand; present.
- idiom. on deck Sports Waiting to take one's turn, especially as a batter in baseball.
- v. To clothe with finery; adorn. Often used with out: We were all decked out for the party.
- v. To decorate: decked the halls for the holidays.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To cover; overspread; invest; especially, to array or clothe with something resplendent or ornamental; adorn; embellish; set out: as, to deck one's self for a wedding; she was decked with jewels.
- Nautical, to furnish with or as with a deck, as a vessel.
- In mining, to load or unload (the cars or tubs) upon the cage.
- [Cf. deck, n., 5.] To discard. Grose. Synonyms Ornament, Decorate, etc. See
adorn . See also list under decorate. - n. A covering; anything that serves as a sheltering cover.
- n. An approximately horizontal platform or floor extending from side to side of a ship or of a part of a ship, as of a deck-house, and supported by beams and carlines. In wooden ships the deck is formed of planks about three inches wide and three inches thick, spiked to the beams and carlines; in iron ships it is formed of iron plating riveted to the beams and girders and generally covered with wooden planking. An armored deck is protected by iron or steel plating. The spar-deck is the upper deck of those which extend from stem to stern; the main deck is the deck immediately below the spar-deck in a double-decked ship; the quarter-deck is that part of the spar-deck which is abaft the mainmast; the topgallant forecastle-deck is a short deck above the spar-deck in the forward part of the ship, generally extending as far aft as the foremast. In a man-of-war the berth-deck is the deck below the gundeck, where the mess-lockers and -tables are placed, and where the hammocks are slung. The gun-deck is the deck of a man-of-war where the battery is carried; in old line-of-battle ships, where guns were carried on three decks below the spar-deck, they were called respectively the upper, middle, and lower gun-deck. A flush deck is a spar-deck clear from stem to stern of houses or other encumbrances. The term half-deck was formerly applied to the after part of the deck next below the spar-deck, and forward of the cabin bulkhead. The hurricane-deck is the upper light deck of side-wheel passenger-steamers. The orlop-deck is below the berth-deck, and is where the cables were formerly stowed. The poop-deck is the after part of the ship, over the cabin, when the cabin is on the spar-deck. The turtle-deck or turtle-backed deck is so called from its resemblance to the back of a turtle, and is a convex deck extending a short distance aft from the stem of an ocean steamer to shed the water in a head sea; in many iron steamships of recent model there is a similar arrangement on the stern. In river-steamers in the United States the boiler-deck is the deck on which the boilers are carried. A cambered deck is a deck arched so as to be higher in the middle than at the stem or stern—the opposite of the usual practice.
- n. In mining, the platform of the cage; that part of the cage on which the cars stand or the men ride. Cages are sometimes built with as many as four decks.
- n. A pile of things laid one upon another; a heap; a store; a file, as of cards or papers.
- n. A pack of cards containing only those necessary to play any given game: as, a euchre deck; a bezique deck.
- n. That part of a pack which remains after the deal, and from which cards may be drawn during the course of the game.
- n. To command every part of the deck, as with small arms, from the tops of an attacking vessel, To take off or carry away all the stakes on a card-table; hence, generally, to gain everything.
- To rig out: as, to deck the card-cylinder of a Jacquard loom.
- n. In car-building, the roof of the clearstory of a passenger-car, often called upper deck; also, the sloping roof on either side of the clearstory, often called lower deck. The word is used in many compounds, such as deck-hood, a projecting shelter to keep the rain out of the deck-end ventilator of a streetcar; deck-lamp, a gas-lamp suspended from the under side of the deck; deck-sash, a clearstory window.
Wiktionary
- n. Any flat surface that can be walked on: a balcony; a porch; a raised patio; a flat rooftop.
- n. A pack or set of playing cards.
- n. The floorlike covering of the horizontal sections, or compartments, of a ship. Small vessels have only one deck; larger ships have two or three decks.
- v. To furnish with a deck, as a vessel.
- v. In a fight or brawl, to knock someone to the floor, especially with a single punch.
- v. To dress (someone) up, to clothe with more than ordinary elegance
- v. To decorate (something).
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To cover; to overspread.
- v. To dress, as the person; to clothe; especially, to clothe with more than ordinary elegance; to array; to adorn; to embellish.
- v. To furnish with a deck, as a vessel.
- v. to knock down (a person) with a forceful blow.
- n. The floorlike covering of the horizontal sections, or compartments, of a ship. Small vessels have only one deck; larger ships have two or three decks.
- n. The upper part or top of a mansard roof or curb roof when made nearly flat.
- n. The roof of a passenger car.
- n. A pack or set of playing cards.
- n. A heap or store.
- n. A main aëroplane surface, esp. of a biplane or multiplane.
- n. the portion of a bridge which serves as the roadway.
- n. a flat platform adjacent to a house, usually without a roof; -- it is typically used for relaxing out of doors, outdoor cooking, or entertaining guests.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a pack of 52 playing cards
- n. a porch that resembles the deck on a ship
- n. street name for a packet of illegal drugs
- v. be beautiful to look at
- n. any of various platforms built into a vessel
- v. knock down with force
- v. decorate.
Etymologies
- Middle English dekke, from Middle Dutch dec, roof, covering; see (s)teg- in Indo-European roots.Dutch dekken, to cover, from Middle Dutch decken; see (s)teg- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“I. ii.155 (14,6) [deck'd the sea] _To deck the sea_, if explained, to honour, adorn, or dignify, is indeed ridiculous, but the original import of the verb _deck_ is, _to cover_; so in some parts they yet say _deck the table_.”
“Board, together with the remainder of thofe on the quarter-deck; and the fliip Sill continuing to open very much, he ordered tarred canvas and hides to be nailed lore and aft, from under the fill* of the porta on the main deck under the fifth plank above, or within the water* ways, and the crew, without orders, did the fame on the lower deck*”
“The A380's upper passenger deck is almost as wide as the main deck of a 747, and the lower one is nineteen inches wider.”
“And, sure enough, there on the deck is a guy is a brilliant, somewhat unworldly professor, busily sketching a design for a new lifeboat as the smoke billows in larger and larger clouds.”
“But please, do go on whining about how stacked the popular media deck is against socially liberal causes.”
“Bottom of the deck is a slavery code and the MSM has already fallen for it by not questioning the use of that phrase.”
The Early Word: Playing Cards - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
“It’s just a card with a mechanic that encourages people to play with Goblins – the actual idea of the Goblin deck is yours and yours alone, even if it turns out that everyone else in the world had the exact same idea when they looked at the card.”
“Given the expense of discovery, the deck is stacked.”
“Maybe there really has been a dramatic decline in prejudice, and the deck is less stacked against black folks than it previously appeared.”
“The sad part of it is, they are too stupid to realize the deck is stacked against them.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deck’.
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Topical
The buzzwords of our time
actionable, administrivia, advermation, agreeance, backbone provider, back-sourcing, baked in, bandwidth, barn raising, Barneyware, belly-buttons, Below Zeros and 734 more...
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Options Lexis
Options terms you must know in order to be a successful options trader.
abandon, accrued interest, acquisition, adjusted option, affidavit of domi..., all-or-none order..., american deposito..., american stock ex..., american-style op..., arbitrage, ask or offer, assigned and 366 more...
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gangster
random gangster lingo.
( randomness )right chea, swagga, chinga, slams, blitzy, earf, manor, code name, rekkid, weight, feather, kong and 298 more...
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Do-it-yourself Christmas Carol List
Tired of singing the same carols year after year? Wanna mix it up a little? Now you can, with the Do-it-yourself Christmas Carol List (from the creator of the Doo-it-yourself Doowop List). Just mix...
let it, reindeer, silent, child, Christmas, got run over by a, mercy mild, winter, joyful, holly, newborn, king and 59 more...
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transportation
change, car, vehicle, cart, baggage, waiting room, ticket, bicycle, life jacket, railway, shared taxi, ferry and 27 more...
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Upside down and backwards
Words, when uppercase, look the same upside down and backwards.

gnd in reference to a power point presentation. Oct 19, 2007