dead duck

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Noun

dead duck (plural dead ducks)

1. (idiomatic) One who is in serious danger or trouble.

   She's a dead duck if she starts flirting with my boyfriend!

2. (idiomatic) A project that is doomed to failure from the start.

   The government decision meant that the proposed boycott of South African goods was a dead duck.

Synonyms

• (person in serious danger): shark bait

Translations

person or project that is in serious trouble or doomed to fail

• Catalan: ser home mort (to be a dead man)
• Finnish: tuhoon tuomittu hanke
• French: être fait comme un rat (fr)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: поко́йник (ru) m (pokójnik), труп (ru) m (trup) (of a person, dead man), до́хлый но́мер (ru) m (dóxlyj nómer) (of a project)
• Spanish: ser hombre muerto

See also

• sitting duck

References

• “dead duck”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.