Deuce

The Kelts called wood-demons dus. (Compare the Latin deus.)

“In the popular mythology both of the Kelts and Teutons there were certain hairy wooddemons, called by the former dus, and by the latter scrat (? scratz). Our common names of ‘Deuceʹ and ‘Old Soratchʹ are plainly derived from these.”—Lowell: Among my Books (Witchcraft), p. 109.

It played the deuce with me. It made me very ill; it disagreed with me; it almost ruined me.

The deuce is in you. You are a very demon.

Deuce take you. Get away! you annoy me.

What the deuce is the matter? What in the world is amiss?

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Deuce

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