deuce

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A playing card having two spots or the side of a die bearing two pips.
2. n. A cast of dice totaling two.
3. n. A tied score in tennis in which each player or side has 40 points, or 5 or more games, and one player or side must win 2 successive points to win the game, or 2 successive games to win the set.
4. v. To make the score of (a tennis game or set) deuce.
5. n. The devil: "Love is a bodily infirmity . . . which breaks out the deuce knows how or why” ( Thackeray).
6. n. An outstanding example, especially of something difficult or bad: had a deuce of a time getting out of town; a deuce of a family row.
7. n. A severe reprimand or expression of anger: got the deuce for being late.
8. n. Used as an intensive: What the deuce were they thinking of?

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The devil: used, with or without the definite article, chiefly in exclamatory or interjectional phrases, expressing surprise, impatience, or emphasis: as, deuce take you! go to the deuce! the deuce you did!
2. n. In cards and other games, two; a card or die with two spots.
3. n. In lawn-tennis, a stage of the game in which both players or sides have scored 40, and one must score 2, or, if the other has vantage, 3 points in succession in order to win the game.

Wiktionary

1. n. epithet The Devil, used in exclamations of confusion or anger
2. n. card games A card with two spots, one of four in a standard deck of playing cards.
3. n. dice A side of a die with two spots.
4. n. dice A cast of dice totalling two.
5. n. The number two.
6. n. tennis A tie, both players have the same number of points and one can win by scoring two additional points.
7. n. baseball A curveball
8. n. A table seating two diners.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Gaming) Two; a card or a die with two spots.
2. n. (Tennis) A condition of the score beginning whenever each side has won three strokes in the same game (also reckoned “40 all”), and reverted to as often as a tie is made until one of the sides secures two successive strokes following a tie or deuce, which decides the game.
3. n. Low The devil; a demon.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a tie in tennis or table tennis that requires winning two successive points to win the game
2. n. one of the four playing cards in a deck that have two spots
3. n. the cardinal number that is the sum of one and one or a numeral representing this number
4. n. a word used in exclamations of confusion