Deuce (playing card)

It may have derived its name from dice games in which the face of the die with two pips is also called a Daus in German.

[7] The name Schwein ("hog") was also used for the deuce as may be read in the Reimchronik über Herzog Ulrich von Württemberg ("Rhyming Chronicle About Duke Ulrich of Wurttemberg"), which also reveals that the deuce, like the ace in the modern game of Skat, was worth 11 points: "The King ought to beat all the cards.

Hellmut Rosenfeld suspects that it was derived from the prize sow that played a role in local shooting festivals (Schützenfesten) and which was linked with the last sheaf of the harvest.

[10] The description Sau may have been a corruption of the word Daus, and the depiction of a boar on the playing cards was simply a pictorial illustration of this etymological development.

According to Marianne Rumpf, the name comes from a Baden dialect in which the "S" is spoken like a "Sch" and the word Dausch is used for a female pig or sow.

Perhaps the word Dausch inspired card artists who illustrated the free space under the coloured symbols with a sow.

[6] The language of card players may also have given rise to the expression Däuser (also Deuser) for 'coins', recorded since the 19th century, because in a game played for money, the aces are worth cash.

Quite similar is the saying Däuser bauen Häuser ("deuces build houses"), which has been used since 1850, because with a trick with several aces, one quickly scores the points needed to win.