Learn English – Is ‘deuce’ (tennis) a corruption of the French phrase ‘à deux de jeu’

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The scoring system of tennis is somewhat arcane and the origins are not well understood. It is likely tennis derives from game played in medieval France in which a clock face was used to keep score. Points in the games were incremented in multiples of fifteen (the 'forty' call is thought simply to be short for 'forty-five', and sixty, the top score, was never called as the game ended when this score was reached). Other peculiarities of tennis scoring include the term 'deuce' and 'love'.

Is 'deuce' a corruption of the French phrase 'à deux de jeu' meaning 'two points away from the (end of the) game'?

Best Answer

The etymology of deuce goes back to the:

late 15c., "toe 2 in dice or cards," also "a roll of 2 in dice" (1510s), from M.Fr. deus (Mod.Fr. deux), from L. duos (nom. duo) "two" (see two). Became a mild oath by 1710, about 50 years after it was first attested in the sense of "bad luck, the devil, etc.," perhaps because two was the lowest score, and probably by similarity to L. deus and related words meaning "god." Low German had der daus! in same sense 16c., which perhaps influenced the English form. Deuce coup is 1940s hot-rodder slang for "souped up two-door car," especially a 1932 Ford.

So, deuce means two and is used for other things besides tennis. Whether the deuce in tennis signifies that a player needs two consecutive points to win the game, or whether it means that the two players have equal scores, is contentious and best left to tennis historians. What we do know is that even though the term has its roots in French, it is not used in the French Open. They prefer égalité at Roland Garros :)

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