Word.ws English Dictionary

deuces wild

deuces wild phrase: a situation in a ballgame where there are two balls, two strikes, two outs and two men on base.

Phrase

deuces wild

  1. A situation in a ballgame where there are two balls, two strikes, two outs and two men on base.
    • The deuces are wild, he would announce before a pitch. Two balls, two strikes, two out, two on, and two to two in the bottom of the second. Bosch could hear Scully's voice in his head as he considered that the deuces were now wild in his own game2015, Michael Connelly, The Crossing
    • If there were two balls and two strikes on a batter, with two outs in an inning—what is called “deuces wild” in baseball—the bullpen would work like mad to get its pitcher out of the inning.2011, Travis Haney, Gamecock Glory: The University of South Carolina Baseball Team's Journey to the 2010 NCAA Championship.

Origin of deuces wild

Refers to various card games where deuces are used as wild cards. Probably coined by Los Angeles Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully.

Questions about deuces wild

What does deuces wild mean?
Deuces wild means a situation in a ballgame where there are two balls, two strikes, two outs and two men on base.
What part of speech is deuces wild?
Deuces wild is a phrase.

Words near deuces wild in the dictionary

  1. deuce-to-seven lowball
  2. deuceaville
  3. deuced
  4. deucedly
  5. deuces
  6. deuces wild
  7. Deuchars
  8. deucravacitinib
  9. deuddarn
  10. deuddarns
  11. Deuel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deuces wild (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-deuces wild.wav.

Cite this entry: “deuces wild.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deuces_wild. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.