dead

adjective

1. 1

   No longer living; deceased. (Also used as a noun.)

   All of my grandparents are dead.

   Have respect for the dead.

   The villagers are mourning their dead.

   The dead are always with us, in our hearts.

2. 2

   Devoid of living things; barren.

   a dead planet

   Behold the substance from which all things draw their energy, the bright Spirit of the Globe, without which it cannot live, but must grow cold and dead as the dead moon.

   Was it possible to exist upon a dead world?

3. 3

   Figuratively, not alive; lacking life.

   When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.

4. 4

   Utterly exhausted.

   “Finished the last one at three this morning, apart from bits and bobs and poppers. Quite frankly, I'm dead!”

5. 5

   So hated or offensive as to be absolutely shunned, ignored, or ostracized.

   He is dead to me.

   I didn't have it in myself to go with grace And you're the hero flying around, saving face And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?

6. 6

   Doomed; marked for death; as good as dead.

   "You come back here this instant! Oh, you're dead, mister!"

   You're dead. A million and one thoughts pounded her at once. But one overpowered all the others. This time you're dead.

7. 7

   Without emotion; impassive.

   She stood with dead face and limp arms, unresponsive to my plea.

8. 8

   Stationary; static; immobile or immovable.

   the dead load on the floor

   a dead lift

9. 9

   Without interest to one of the senses; dull; flat.

   dead air

   a dead glass of soda.

   He stopped, took a swig of the dead champagne. It was like 7-Up.

10. 10

    Unproductive; fallow.

    dead time

    dead fields

    The auditorium opens and the seats fill. As ever, there's a brief, grey dead time while Wheeler waits for all the machinery of the performance to spin up. The anxious feeling is stronger than usual today. It grips him, an uncharacteristic urge to run away. Sure, he thinks. I could just junk my career, right now. Pack it in and make for the stage door. Maybe the taxi'll still be there.

11. 11

    Past, bygone, vanished.

    Then shall the Times that were be Times no more; and it may be that the old, dead days shall return from beyond the Rim, and we who have wept for them shall see those days again, as one who, returning from long travel to his home, comes suddenly on dear, remembered things.

12. 12

    Lacking usual activity; unexpectedly quiet or empty of people.

    For a Friday night, it's really dead in this restaurant.

13. 13

    Completely inactive; currently without power; without a signal; not live.

    OK, the circuit's dead. Go ahead and cut the wire.

    Now that the motor's dead you can reach in and extract the spark plugs.

    The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

    Joker: Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all. Just goes dead. There's nothing.

14. 14

    Unable to emit power, being discharged (flat) or faulty.

15. 15

    Broken or inoperable.

    That monitor is dead; don’t bother hooking it up.

16. 16

    No longer used or required.

    There are several dead laws still on the books regulating where horses may be hitched.

    Is this beer glass dead?

    No mark of any kind should ever be made on a dead manuscript.

    In this paper, we survey the set of techniques found in the wild that are intended to prevent data-scrubbing operations from being removed during dead store elimination.

17. 17

    Intentionally designed so as not to impart motion or power.

    the dead spindle of a lathe

    A dead axle, also called a lazy axle, is not part of the drivetrain, but is instead free-rotating.

18. 18

    Not in play.

    Once the ball crosses the foul line, it's dead.

19. 19

    Lying so near the hole that the player is certain to hole it in the next stroke.

20. 20

    slangTagged out.

21. 21

    Full and complete (usually applied to nouns involving lack of motion, sound, activity, or other signs of life).

    dead stop

    dead sleep

    dead giveaway

    dead silence

22. 22

    Exact; on the dot.

    dead center

    dead aim

    a dead eye

    a dead level

23. 23

    Experiencing pins and needles (paresthesia).

    After sitting on my hands for a while, my arms became dead.

24. 24

    Expresses an emotional reaction associated with hyperbolic senses of die: Dying of laughter.

    Lmao I’m dead this was me to my fiancé since I found out in the car and my son was in the back seat 😭

    [object Object]

25. 25

    Expresses an emotional reaction associated with hyperbolic senses of die: Expresses shock, second-hand embarrassment, etc.

    [object Object]

26. 26

    Constructed so as not to reflect or transmit sound; soundless; anechoic.

    a dead floor

27. 27

    obsoleteBringing death; deadly.

    You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

28. 28

    Cut off from the rights of a citizen; deprived of the power of enjoying the rights of property.

    A person who is banished or who becomes a monk is civilly dead.

29. 29

    rareIndifferent to; having no obligation toward; no longer subject to or ruled by (sin, guilt, pleasure, etc).

    He was dead to the law. Whatever account others might make of it, yet, for his part, he was dead to it. […] But though he was thus dead to the law, yet he […] was far from thinking himself discharged from his duty to God' on the contrary, he was dead to the law, that he might live unto God.

    But he died to the guilt of sin—to the guilt of his people's sins which he had taken upon him; and they, dying with him, as is above declared, die to sin precisely in the same sense in which he died to it. […] He was not justified from it till his resurrection, but from that moment he was dead to it. When he shall appear the second time, it will be "without sin."

30. 30

    Of a syllable in languages such as Thai and Burmese: ending abruptly.

    […] syllable is dead, the tone will depend on whether the vowel is short or long.

adverb

1. 1

   informalExactly.

   dead right; dead level; dead flat; dead straight; dead left

   He hit the target dead in the centre.

   Across the region known as the Landes, this stretch of line is almost dead level, and the only curve is one of 2¼ miles radius through the station of Labouheyre.

   The ships would leave Europe in April, when there was a good easterly wind. Trans-Atlantic mariners wanted the wind dead on the stern, so they could run with it, sticking to the same latitude—a method called easting and westing. Columbus, Cabot, and many others had done this.

2. 2

   informalVery, absolutely, extremely.

   dead wrong; dead set; dead serious; dead drunk; dead broke; dead earnest; dead certain; dead slow; dead sure; dead simple; dead honest; dead accurate; dead easy

   I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars.

   They tried the gas in the room and it was dead out; they looked at the meter in the basement afterwards and it was dead off.

3. 3

   Suddenly and completely.

   He stopped dead.

   She cut me dead again at the last party.

4. 4

   informalAs if dead.

   dead tired; dead quiet; dead asleep; dead pale; dead cold; dead still

   I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy.

noun

1. 1

   Time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is most intense.

   Near-synonym: nadir

   the dead of night

   the dead of winter

noun

1. 1

   Those who have died: dead people.

   the quick and the dead

   Will the dead rise again?

   He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

noun

1. 1

   (usually in the plural) Sterile mining waste, often present as many large rocks stacked inside the workings.

2. 2

   Variant of deadliftClipping of deadlift.

verb

1. 1

   To prevent by disabling; to stop.

   1826, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Edward Reynolds, Lord Bishop of Norwich, collected by Edward Reynolds, Benedict Riveley, and Alexander Chalmers. pp. 227. London: B. Holdsworth. “What a man should do, when finds his natural impotency dead him in spiritual works”

2. 2

   To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigour.

   Heaven's stern decree, / With many an ill, hath numb'd and deaded me.

3. 3

   slangTo kill.

   I shoulda deaded it from genesis instead of hittin' the Guinnesses

   This dude at the club was trying to kill us so I deaded him, and then I had to collect from Spice.

   “What, you was just gonna dead him because if that's the case then why the fuck we getting the money?” Sha asked annoyed.

   TOMMY:”Honestly, I’d love to help you with that but I’ve got a surplus of motherfuckers that I need to dead right now.”

4. 4

   slangTo discontinue or put an end to (something).

   "I thought I told you to shut up," said Jesus. "I don't be laying up with chickenheads, so you need to dead that shit before you piss me the fuck off."

   "This might be kinda beside the point right now," I said carefully, settling into the chair across from him, "but it's probably time to dead all that open-door no-gun shit, huh?"

   "Shorty, whatchu got in your pocket? Let me see that hat." ¶ "Nah, man. Dead that." Out would come the .32. ¶ "Oh, aight. You got that, shorty, you got that."

Forms

plural

deads

comparative

deader

superlative

deadest

past tense

deaded

past participle

deaded

present participle

deading

third person singular

deads