Dukes

How to spell dukes

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dukes

What does dukes mean?

1. nounMore than one duke; male nobles of the highest hereditary rank below a prince.
2. nounInformal term for a person's fists, especially when raised ready to fight.

Dukes in a sentence

• Two dukes attended the royal coronation in full ceremonial dress.

• The old boxing coach told him to keep his dukes up at all times.

• The history book listed every one of the medieval dukes and their estates.

• He raised his dukes and squared off in the school playground.

Where does dukes come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The singular duke comes from the Latin dux, meaning 'leader' or 'commander', the same root that gives us 'conduct', 'educate' and 'duct'. It entered English through the Old French duc during the 1100s, originally describing a sovereign ruler of a small state or duchy and later settling into its modern sense of a high-ranking nobleman just below a prince. The plural simply adds -s, and the spelling keeps the silent-looking 'u' from the French form. The slang sense meaning 'fists' is a curious offshoot: it most likely grew out of Cockney rhyming slang, where 'Duke of York' stood in for 'fork', a term for the hand, so 'put up your dukes' came to mean 'raise your fists'. That colourful detour explains why the same plural word covers both noblemen and clenched hands.

How the word is built

• duke (from Latin dux: leader)
• -s (plural)