Meanings
- card gamesA pair of aces and a pair of eights (especially, the black aces and eights), in a player's hand.
"A dead man's hand or queens on the roof at least," suggested Southack. "They say two aces and two eights can never be beat."
1907, Davida French with Esther Stevens and Laura Wells, “The Rulers of the Realm”, in Not Included in a Sheepskin: Stanford Stories, Stanford: The Stanford Book Store, page 172Synonyms: aces and eights, eights and aces
- card gamesAn ace and an eight as a starting hand in Texas hold 'em
- obsoletecard gamesOther various hands, among them a full house of three jacks and two tens.
When playing poker, should you hold a jack full on red sevens, it means death, and is called "a dead man's hand".
1903, Cora Linn Morrison Daniels, Charles McClellan Stevens, editors, Encyclopædia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, volume 3, J. H. Yewdale, page 1478
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA pair of aces and a pair of eights (especially, the black aces and eights), in a player's hand.
Origin
The aces and eights sense is from a legend that Wild Bill Hickok was holding such cards at the time he was killed in 1876.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
dead man's hand. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20man's%20hand
“dead man's hand.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20man's%20hand. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dead man's hand,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20man's%20hand.
Source: dead man's hand on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.