duke

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A nobleman with the highest hereditary rank, especially a man of the highest grade of the peerage in Great Britain.
2. n. A sovereign prince who rules an independent duchy in some European countries.
3. n. Used as the title for such a nobleman.
4. n. Slang A fist. Often used in the plural: Put up your dukes!
5. n. Botany A type of cherry intermediate between a sweet and a sour cherry.
6. v. To fight, especially with fists: duking it out.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A chief; a prince; a commander; a leader: as, “the dukes of Edom,”
2. n. In Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, a hereditary title of nobility, ranking next below that of prince, but in some instances a sovereign title, as in those of the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, Lorraine, etc. (see 3, below), or borne as his distinguishing title by a prince of the blood royal. The first English duke was Edward the Black Prince, created Duke of Cornwall in 1837. Dukes, when British peers, sit in the House of Lords by right of birth; Scotch and Irish dukes have a right of election to it, in common with other peers of those countries, in certain proportions; in other countries, except Germany (see below), the title conveys no prescriptive political power. In Great Britain a duke's coronet consists of a richly chased gold circle, having on its upper edge eight strawberry-leaves, with or without a cap of crimson velvet, closed at the top with a gold tassel, lined with sarcenet, and turned up with ermine.
3. n. A sovereign prince, the ruler of a state called a duchy. In the middle ages, on the continent of Europe, all dukes were hereditary territorial rulers, generally in subordination to a king or an emperor, though often independent; now only German dukes retain that status, and of these there are but five, those of Anhalt, Brunswick, Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Saxe-Meiningen. Modena and Parma, in Italy, were ruled by sovereign dukes until their incorporation with the kingdom of Italy in 1860.
4. n. A name of the great eagle-owl of Europe, Bubo maximus, called grand-duc by the French.
5. n. plural The fists.
6. To play the duke.
7. n. A dialectal (Scotch) form of duck.
8. n. A vehicle having a victoria body suspended at the front on scroll-irons. At the rear is a rumble for a footman. It is sometimes driven by a postilion. Now called a ladies' driving-phaëton.

Wiktionary

1. n. The male ruler of a duchy (compare duchess).
2. n. A high title of nobility; the male holder of a dukedom.
3. n. A grand duke.
4. n. slang, usually in plural A fist.
5. v. transitive To hit or beat with the fists.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A leader; a chief; a prince.
2. n. In England, one of the highest order of nobility after princes and princesses of the royal blood and the four archbishops of England and Ireland.
3. n. In some European countries, a sovereign prince, without the title of king.
4. n. slang The fists.
5. v. Poetic To play the duke.
6. v. slang To beat with the fists.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a nobleman (in various countries) of high rank
2. n. a British peer of the highest rank