dukes
pronunciation
How to pronounce dukes in British English:
UK 
How to pronounce dukes in American English:
US
Word Origin
- dukes (n.)
- "hands," 1874, now mainly in put up your dukes (phrase from 1859), probably not connected to duke (n.). Chapman ["Dictionary of American Slang"] suggests Romany dook "the hand as read in palmistry, one's fate;" but Partridge ["Slang To-day and Yesterday"] gives it a plausible, if elaborate, etymology as a contraction of Duke of Yorks, rhyming slang for forks, a Cockney term for "fingers," thus "hands."
Example
- 1. Dukes and cardinals , oligarchs and financiers , fixers and traders become very wealthy not by virtue of their talents but as a result of the position they occupy .
- 2. Chief executives now behave like dukes , extractingfrom their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do orthe value they generate , sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses theyparasitise .
- 3. But his finest work is drawn from life , and designed to satisfy the vanity and lust of magnificent dukes , corrupt popes and powerful emperors . It sharpens the senses and gives pleasure .
- 4. The pope was stripped of most of his dominions , the bourbon dynasty was exiled from naples , the dukes of central italy lost their thrones , and the kings of piedmont became monarchs of italy .
- 5. In young 's fable , the academically talented working class happily join the elite . But the less talented resent them even more than they did the old dukes and duchesses .