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deuce
Content courtesy of 
From: The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms
Date: 20040101
Author:JUDITH SIEFRING
deuce informal
a ( or the) deuce of a — something very bad or difficult of its kind.1933
John Galsworthy
The End of the Chapter
It seems there's a deuce of a fuss in the Bolivian papers.the deuce to pay trouble to be expected.
like the deuce very fast.
• Deuce was first used in 17th-century English in various exclamatory expressions in which it was equated with ‘bad luck’ or ‘mischief’, because in dice playing two (= deuce) is the lowest and most unlucky throw. From this there soon developed the sense of deuce as ‘the devil’ (i.e. ...
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