Other forms: dealing, deals, dealt
To deal cards is to hand them out one at a time round the table until everybody has a hand. You shuffle, somebody cuts, and you deal seven each. Whoever deals plays last, and after the hand the deal passes to the left.
Away from the table, deal is one of the busiest words in English. A deal is an agreement, so you make a deal, close a deal, or get a raw deal when it goes against you. Deal with means handle: you deal with a complaint, deal with the washing-up, deal with your brother. Traders deal in things, as in a man who deals in rare motorcycle parts, and the same verb with nothing named after it is the one used for selling drugs. A great deal of something is a lot of it. The past tense is dealt, never dealed.
1nounagreementAn agreement, especially one about business or money.~75%
“They shook hands on the deal in the car park.”
synonyms: agreement, bargain, arrangement
2verbhandleTo take action about something; to handle it. Used with with.~6%
“The council still has not dealt with the flooding on Mill Lane.”
3nounlargeA large amount, in the phrases a great deal and a good deal.~11%
“It took a great deal of persuading to get him onto the plane.”
4verbtradeTo buy and sell a particular kind of goods. Used with in.~2%
“His uncle deals in vintage motorcycle parts.”
synonyms: trade
5verbdealTo hand playing cards out to each player.~6%
“She dealt five cards each and turned the top of the pack over.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Deal goes back to Old English dǣl, meaning a part, a share, a portion, from Proto-Germanic *dailiz and a Proto-Indo-European root for a part or a watershed. German Teil and Dutch deel are the same word wearing different clothes. That is why dealing cards is sharing a pack out, and why a great deal is a large portion of whatever you are talking about.
Middle English
dele
English, today
deal
From Middle English dele. From Middle English del, dele, from Old English dǣl (“part, share, portion”), from Proto-West Germanic daili, from Proto-Germanic dailiz (“part, deal”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰ(h₁)-oy-lo- (“part, watershed”). Cognate with Scots dele (“part, portion”), West Frisian diel (“part, share”), Dutch deel (“part, share, portion”), German Teil (“part, portion, section”), Danish, Slovene and Swedish del (“part”), Icelandic deila (“division, contention”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌹𐌻𐍃 (“portion”). Related to Old English dāl (“portion”). More at dole.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA