Definition of "deuce" []

• A playing card having two spots or the side of a die bearing two pips. (noun)
• A cast of dice totaling two. (noun)
• 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. (noun)
• To make the score of (a tennis game or set) deuce. (verb-transitive)
• The devil: "Love is a bodily infirmity . . . which breaks out the deuce knows how or why” ( Thackeray). (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• ""But what the deuce is all this?" demanded the other."
• "'After all,' said Darwin the other day, 'what the deuce is Carlyle's religion, or has he any?'"
• "And the Caroline C----- (who the deuce is she that writes such a scratchy, illegible hand?) sends her love to Mrs. Carlyle, and proposes to 'talk to her about Amisfield and"