Pronunciations (3)
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/dɛd/
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/diːd/
Pronunciation notes
- Northumbria
- West-Country
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dɛd
Adjective
No longer living; deceased. (Also used as a noun.)
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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All of my grandparents are dead.
Have respect for the dead.
More examples (6)
The villagers are mourning their dead.
The dead are always with us, in our hearts.
Lily was pronounced dead at the scene.
A storekeeper downtown was shot dead last evening.
raise the dead
wake the dead
Devoid of living things; barren.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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a dead planet
More examples (1)
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?
Figuratively, not alive; lacking life.
Usage- excessive
- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
Utterly exhausted.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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“Finished the last one at three this morning, apart from bits and bobs and poppers. Quite frankly, I'm dead!”
So hated or offensive as to be absolutely shunned, ignored, or ostracized.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- of another person
- Examples
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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?
Doomed; marked for death; as good as dead.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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"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.
Without emotion; impassive.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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She stood with dead face and limp arms, unresponsive to my plea.
Stationary; static; immobile or immovable.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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the dead load on the floor
a dead lift
Without interest to one of the senses; dull; flat.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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dead air
a dead glass of soda.
More examples (1)
He stopped, took a swig of the dead champagne. It was like 7-Up.
Unproductive; fallow.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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dead time
dead fields
More examples (1)
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.
Past, bygone, vanished.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
Lacking usual activity; unexpectedly quiet or empty of people.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- of a place
- Examples
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For a Friday night, it's really dead in this restaurant.
Completely inactive; currently without power; without a signal; not live.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- of a machine
- Examples
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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.
More examples (2)
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.
Unable to emit power, being discharged (flat) or faulty.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- of a battery
Broken or inoperable.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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That monitor is dead; don’t bother hooking it up.
No longer used or required.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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There are several dead laws still on the books regulating where horses may be hitched.
Is this beer glass dead?
More examples (2)
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.
Intentionally designed so as not to impart motion or power.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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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.
Not in play.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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Once the ball crosses the foul line, it's dead.
Lying so near the hole that the player is certain to hole it in the next stroke.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- of a golf ball
Tagged out.
Usage- not-comparable
- Slang
- usually
Full and complete (usually applied to nouns involving lack of motion, sound, activity, or other signs of life).
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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dead stop
dead sleep
More examples (2)
dead giveaway
dead silence
Exact; on the dot.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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dead center
dead aim
More examples (2)
a dead eye
a dead level
Experiencing pins and needles (paresthesia).
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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After sitting on my hands for a while, my arms became dead.
Expresses an emotional reaction associated with hyperbolic senses of die: Dying of laughter.
Usage- Internet
- excessive
- not-comparable
- often
- sometimes
- usually
- as a standalone word
- with 💀
- Examples
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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 😭
Expresses an emotional reaction associated with hyperbolic senses of die: Expresses shock, second-hand embarrassment, etc.
Usage- Internet
- not-comparable
- often
- sometimes
- usually
- as a standalone word
- with 💀
- Synonyms
- RIPmul:💀
Constructed so as not to reflect or transmit sound; soundless; anechoic.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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a dead floor
Bringing death; deadly.
Usage- not-comparable
- Obsolete
- usually
- Examples
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You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
Cut off from the rights of a citizen; deprived of the power of enjoying the rights of property.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Examples
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A person who is banished or who becomes a monk is civilly dead.
Indifferent to; having no obligation toward; no longer subject to or ruled by (sin, guilt, pleasure, etc).
Usage- especially
- not-comparable
- often
- Rare
- usually
- with "to"
- Examples
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More examples (2)
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."
Of a syllable in languages such as Thai and Burmese: ending abruptly.
Usage- not-comparable
- usually
- Antonyms
- Examples
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[…] syllable is dead, the tone will depend on whether the vowel is short or long.
Adverb
Exactly.
Usage- Colloquial
- Informal
- not-comparable
- Examples
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dead right; dead level; dead flat; dead straight; dead left
He hit the target dead in the centre.
More examples (4)
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.
Independent tests later confirmed [the figures] to be accurate, with Car & Driver seeing 159mph (254kph), 0.60 in five seconds dead, and an amazingly high 0.97g.
And because the tunnel is dead straight, it's perfect for reaching high speeds.
Very, absolutely, extremely.
Usage- Colloquial
- Informal
- not-comparable
- Examples
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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.
More examples (1)
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.
Suddenly and completely.
Usage- not-comparable
- Examples
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He stopped dead.
She cut me dead again at the last party.
As if dead.
Usage- Informal
- not-comparable
- Examples
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dead tired; dead quiet; dead asleep; dead pale; dead cold; dead still
I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy.
Noun
Time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is most intense.
Usage- often
- Uncountable
- with-definite-article
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Near-synonym: nadir
the dead of night
More examples (1)
the dead of winter
Noun
Those who have died: dead people.
Usage- plural
- Plural only
- with-definite-article
- Examples
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the quick and the dead
Will the dead rise again?
More examples (1)
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Noun
(usually in the plural) Sterile mining waste, often present as many large rocks stacked inside the workings.
Usage- UK usage
Verb
To prevent by disabling; to stop.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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”
To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigour.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Heaven's stern decree, / With many an ill, hath numb'd and deaded me.
To kill.
Usage- UK usage
- US usage
- Slang
- Transitive
- Examples
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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.
More examples (2)
“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.”
To discontinue or put an end to (something).
Usage- broadly
- Slang
- Transitive
- Examples
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"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."
More examples (1)
"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."
Adjective
no longer having or seeming to have or expecting to have life
- Antonyms
- Examples
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the nerve is dead
a dead pallor
More examples (1)
he was marked as a dead man by the assassin
not showing characteristics of life especially the capacity to sustain life; no longer exerting force or having energy or heat
- Antonyms
- Examples
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Mars is a dead planet
dead soil
More examples (2)
dead coals
the fire is dead
very tired
- Examples
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was all in at the end of the day
so beat I could flop down and go to sleep anywhere
More examples (2)
bushed after all that exercise
I'm dead after that long trip
unerringly accurate
- Examples
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a dead shot
took dead aim
physically inactive
- Examples
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Crater Lake is in the crater of a dead volcano of the Cascade Range
(followed by ‘to’) not showing human feeling or sensitivity; unresponsive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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passersby were dead to our plea for help
numb to the cries for mercy
devoid of physical sensation; numb
- Synonyms
- Examples
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his gums were dead from the novocain
she felt no discomfort as the dentist drilled her deadened tooth
More examples (1)
a public desensitized by continuous television coverage of atrocities
lacking acoustic resonance
- Examples
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dead sounds characteristic of some compact discs
the dead wall surfaces of a recording studio
not yielding a return
- Synonyms
- Examples
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dead capital
idle funds
not circulating or flowing
- Synonyms
- Examples
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dead air
dead water
More examples (1)
stagnant water
not surviving in active use
- Examples
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Latin is a dead language
lacking resilience or bounce
- Examples
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a dead tennis ball
out of use or operation because of a fault or breakdown
- Examples
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a dead telephone line
the motor is dead
no longer having force or relevance
- Examples
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a dead issue
the complete stoppage of an action
- Examples
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came to a dead stop
drained of electric charge; discharged
- Synonyms
- Examples
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a dead battery
left the lights on and came back to find the battery drained
devoid of activity
- Examples
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this is a dead town: nothing ever happens here
Noun
people who are no longer living
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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they buried the dead
a time when coldness (or some other quality associated with death) is intense
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the dead of winter
Adverb
completely and without qualification; used informally as intensifiers
- Synonyms
- Examples
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an absolutely magnificent painting
a perfectly idiotic idea
More examples (5)
you're perfectly right
utterly miserable
you can be dead sure of my innocence
was dead tired
dead right
quickly and without warning happening unexpectedly on impulse; without premeditation
- Examples
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he stopped suddenly
suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her side
More examples (2)
he decided to go to Chicago on the spur of the moment
he made up his mind suddenly