dead
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English ded, deed, from Old English dēad, from Proto-West Germanic *daud, from Proto-Germanic *daudaz.
Compare West Frisian dead, dea, Dutch dood, German tot, Danish, Norwegian død, Norwegian Nynorsk daud.
Pronunciation[edit]
- enPR: dĕd, IPA(key): /dɛd/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛd
- (West Country) IPA(key): /diːd/
Adjective[edit]
dead (comparative deader, superlative deadest)

- (usually not comparable) No longer living. (Also used as a noun.)
- 1968, Ray Thomas, "Legend of a Mind", The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord.
- Timothy Leary's dead. / No, no no no, he's outside, looking in.
- 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.
- raise the dead
- wake the dead
- 1968, Ray Thomas, "Legend of a Mind", The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord.
- (usually not comparable) Devoid of life.
- 1887, H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure[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.
- 1913, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Poison Belt[2]:
- Was it possible to exist upon a dead world?
- (hyperbolic) Figuratively, not alive; lacking life.
- 1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act III, Scene 3:
- 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.
- (of another person) So hated that they are absolutely ignored.
- He is dead to me.
- Doomed; marked for death (literally or as a hyperbole).
- "You come back here this instant! Oh, you're dead, mister!"
- 2009, Noel Hynd, Midnight in Madrid[3]:
- 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.
- She stood with dead face and limp arms, unresponsive to my plea.
- Stationary; static.
- the dead load on the floor
- a dead lift
- Without interest to one of the senses; dull; flat.
- dead air
- a dead glass of soda.
- Unproductive.
- dead time
- dead fields
- (not comparable, of a machine, device, or electrical circuit) Completely inactive; currently without power; without a signal.
- 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.
- 1984, William Gibson, chapter 1, in Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 3:
- The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
- 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, OCLC 246633669, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1:
- Joker: Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all. Just goes dead. There's nothing.
- (of a battery) Unable to emit power, being discharged (flat) or faulty.
- (not comparable) Broken or inoperable.
- That monitor is dead; don’t bother hooking it up.
- (not comparable) 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?
- 1984, Winston Smock, Technical Writing for Beginners, page 148:
- No mark of any kind should ever be made on a dead manuscript.
- 2017, Zhaomo Yang and Brian Johannesmeyer, "Dead Store Elimination (Still) Considered Harmful":
- 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.
- (engineering) Not imparting motion or power by design.
- 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 comparable, sports) Not in play.
- Once the ball crosses the foul line, it's dead.
- (not comparable, golf, of a golf ball) Lying so near the hole that the player is certain to hole it in the next stroke.
- (not comparable, baseball, slang, 1800s) Tagged out.
- (not comparable) Full and complete.
- dead stop
- dead sleep
- dead giveaway
- dead silence
- (not comparable) Exact.
- dead center
- dead aim
- a dead eye
- a dead level
- Experiencing pins and needles (paresthesia).
- After sitting on my hands for a while, my arms became dead.
- Constructed so as not to transmit sound; soundless.
- a dead floor
- (obsolete) Bringing death; deadly.
- c. 1596, William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene vii]:
- You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear
- (law) 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.
- (rare, especially religion, often with "to") Indifferent to, no longer subject to or ruled by (sin, guilt, pleasure, etc).
- 1839, William Jenks, The Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible: Acts-Revelation, page 361:
- 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.
- 1849, Robert Haldane, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, page 255:
- 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."
- 1839, William Jenks, The Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible: Acts-Revelation, page 361:
Usage notes[edit]
- In Middle and Early Modern English, the phrase is dead was more common where the present perfect form has died is common today. Example:
- 1611, King James Bible
- I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Gal. 2:21)
Synonyms[edit]
- See also Thesaurus:dead
Antonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Adverb[edit]
dead (not comparable)
- (degree, informal, colloquial) Exactly.
- dead right; dead level; dead flat; dead straight; dead left
- He hit the target dead in the centre.
- (degree, informal, colloquial) Very, 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; dead scared; dead solid; dead black; dead white; dead empty
- 1899 Feb, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, page 216:
- I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars.
- Suddenly and completely.
- He stopped dead.
- (informal) As if dead.
- dead tired; dead quiet; dead asleep; dead pale; dead cold; dead still
- 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, OCLC 558196156:
- I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy.
Translations[edit]
Noun[edit]
dead (uncountable)
- (often with "the") Time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is most intense.
- The dead of night. The dead of winter.
Translations[edit]
Noun[edit]
dead (plural deads)
- (UK) (usually in the plural) Sterile mining waste, often present as many large rocks stacked inside the workings.
- (bodybuilding, colloquial) Clipping of deadlift.
Verb[edit]
dead (third-person singular simple present deads, present participle deading, simple past and past participle deaded)
- (transitive) To prevent by disabling; 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”
- 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.
- (transitive) To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigour.
- 1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, OCLC 1002865976; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, OCLC 987451380:
- Heaven's stern decree, / With many an ill, hath numb'd and deaded me.
- (UK, US, transitive, slang) To kill.
- 2006, Leighanne Boyd, Once Upon A Time In The Bricks, page 178:
- This dude at the club was trying to kill us so I deaded him, and then I had to collect from Spice.
- 2008, Marvlous Harrison, The Coalition, page 106:
- “What, you was just gonna dead him because if that's the case then why the fuck we getting the money?” Sha asked annoyed.
- 2020 January 6, Courtney A. Kemp, Matt K. Turner, Power, season 6, episode 11, spoken by Tommy Egan (E Joseph Sikora), 33:48 from the start:
- 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.”
Related terms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
- better dead than red
- brain dead/brain-dead
- clinically dead
- dead air
- dead as a dodo
- dead as a doorknob
- dead as a doornail
- dead ball
- dead bat
- deadbeat
- dead body
- dead-born/deadborn
- dead cat bounce
- dead center
- dead code
- dead donkey
- dead duck
- dead end
- deadfall
- dead giveaway
- dead hand
- deadhead
- dead heat
- dead horse
- dead ice
- dead-in-shell
- dead in the water
- dead language
- dead last
- dead leg
- dead letter
- deadlike
- deadline/dead line
- dead link
- deadlock
- dead man/dead man's hand
- dead march
- dead marine
- dead meat
- dead men
- dead men's shoes
- dead men tell no tales
- dead metaphor
- deadname
- deadness
- deadnettle
- dead on
- dead or alive
- deadpan
- dead president
- dead reckoning
- dead rubber
- Dead Sea
- dead section
- dead serious
- dead set against
- dead shot
- dead soldier
- dead space
- dead stand
- dead sticking
- dead to rights
- dead to the world
- dead tree
- dead water
- dead weight
- deadwood
- dead zone
- drop dead
- from my cold, dead hands
- leave for dead
- living dead
- not be caught dead
- over my dead body
- play dead
- raise the dead
- stop dead
References[edit]
- dead at OneLook Dictionary Search
Anagrams[edit]
French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Verb[edit]
dead
- (slang, anglicism) to succeed (in doing something well, "killing it")
- 2018, “Djadja”, in Djadja, performed by Aya Nakamura:
- J'suis pas ta catin Djadja, genre en catchana baby tu dead ça.
- I ain't your bitch Djadja, as if you kill it doing doggystyle, baby.
Usage notes[edit]
The verb is left unconjugated: il dead, il a dead. Usage is limited to the present, as well as an infinitive or a past participle.
Old English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-West Germanic *daud, from Proto-Germanic *daudaz. Cognate with Old Frisian dād, Old Saxon dōd, Old High German tōt, Old Norse dauðr, Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐍃 (dauþs).
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
dēad
Declension[edit]
Singular | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
---|---|---|---|
Nominative | dēad | dēad | dēad |
Accusative | dēadne | dēade | dēad |
Genitive | dēades | dēadre | dēades |
Dative | dēadum | dēadre | dēadum |
Instrumental | dēade | dēadre | dēade |
Plural | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
Nominative | dēade | dēada, dēade | dēad |
Accusative | dēade | dēada, dēade | dēad |
Genitive | dēadra | dēadra | dēadra |
Dative | dēadum | dēadum | dēadum |
Instrumental | dēadum | dēadum | dēadum |
Related terms[edit]
- dēaþ (“death”)
Derived terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
See also[edit]
- sweltan (“to die”)
Old Irish[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Proto-Celtic *dīwedom, verbal noun of *dīwedeti (“to stop”) (whence Welsh diwedd (“end, ending”)).
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
dead n (genitive deïd, no plural)
Declension[edit]
Neuter o-stem | |||
---|---|---|---|
Singular | Dual | Plural | |
Nominative | deadN | — | — |
Vocative | deadN | — | — |
Accusative | deadN | — | — |
Genitive | deïdL | — | — |
Dative | dïudL, deüd | — | — |
Initial mutations of a following adjective:
|
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Descendants[edit]
- Irish: diaidh
- ⇒ Middle Irish: co dead (“forever”, literally “to the end”)
- Irish: go deo
- Scottish Gaelic: dèidh
- Manx: jei
Mutation[edit]
Old Irish mutation | ||
---|---|---|
Radical | Lenition | Nasalization |
dead | dead pronounced with /ð(ʲ)-/ |
ndead |
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. |
Further reading[edit]
- G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “dead”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- Ranko Matasović (2009), “dī-wedo-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 100
Volapük[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Borrowed from English dead or death (with the "th" changed to "d").
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
dead (nominative plural deads)
Declension[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰew- (die)
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɛd
- Rhymes:English/ɛd/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with usage examples
- English hyperboles
- en:Engineering
- en:Sports
- en:Golf
- en:Baseball
- English slang
- English terms with obsolete senses
- en:Law
- English terms with rare senses
- en:Religion
- English adverbs
- English uncomparable adverbs
- English informal terms
- English colloquialisms
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- British English
- en:Bodybuilding
- English clippings
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- American English
- en:Cricket
- en:Death
- English degree adverbs
- French terms borrowed from English
- French terms derived from English
- French 1-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French verbs
- French slang
- French terms with quotations
- Old English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Old English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Old English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Old English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- Old English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- Old English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Old English lemmas
- Old English adjectives
- ang:Death
- Old Irish terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Old Irish terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *wedʰ-
- Old Irish terms inherited from Proto-Celtic
- Old Irish terms derived from Proto-Celtic
- Old Irish terms with IPA pronunciation
- Old Irish lemmas
- Old Irish nouns
- Old Irish neuter nouns
- Old Irish neuter o-stem nouns
- Old Irish uncountable nouns
- Volapük terms borrowed from English
- Volapük terms derived from English
- Volapük terms with IPA pronunciation
- Volapük lemmas
- Volapük nouns
- vo:Death