• enPR: dĕd, IPA: /dɛd/
• (West Country) IPA: /diːd/

dead (comparative deader, superlative deadest)

1. (not comparable) No longer living.
   • 1968, Ray Thomas, "Legend of a Mind", The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord.

     quote en

   All of my grandparents are dead.
2. (hyperbole) Figuratively, not alive; lacking life.
3. (of another person) So hated that they are absolutely ignored.

   He is dead to me.

   • 1995, Rob Roy, Mary:

     "I will think of you as dead, until my husband makes you that way. Then I will think of you no longer."

4. Doomed; marked for death (literally or as a hyperbole).

   "You come back here this instant! Oh, when I get my hands on you, you're dead, mister!"

5. Without emotion.

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

6. Stationary; static.

   the dead load on the floor

   a dead lift

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

   dead air

   a dead glass of soda.

8. Unproductive.

   dead time

   dead fields

9. (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.

10. (of a battery) Unable to emit power, being discharged (flat) or faulty.
11. (not comparable) Broken or inoperable.

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

12. (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?

    • 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.

13. (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.

14. (not comparable, sports) Not in play.

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

15. (not comparable, golf, of a golf ball) Lying so near the hole that the player is certain to hole it in the next stroke.
16. (not comparable, baseball, slang, 1800s) Tagged out.
17. (not comparable) Full and complete.

    dead stop

    dead sleep

    dead giveaway

    dead silence

18. (not comparable) Exact.

    dead center

    dead aim

    a dead eye

    a dead level

19. Experiencing pins and needles (paresthesia).

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

20. Constructed so as not to transmit sound; soundless.

    a dead floor

21. (obsolete) Bringing death; deadly.
22. (legal) 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.

23. (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."

• See also Thesaurus:dead

• alive
• living

• French: mort
• German: tot, gestorben
• Italian: morto
• Portuguese: morto
• Russian: мёртвый
• Spanish: muerto

• German: gestorben
• Russian: мёртвый

• Portuguese: morto

• German: bewegungslos
• Russian: неподви́жный

• Russian: безжи́зненный

• Russian: до́хлый
• Spanish: muerto

• Russian: сло́манный

• Portuguese: dormente

dead (not comparable)

1. (degree, informal, colloquial) Exactly.

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

   He hit the target dead in the centre.

2. (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

3. Suddenly and completely.

   He stopped dead.

4. (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.

• German: genau
• Russian: пря́мо

• German: tod-
• Russian: абсолю́тно

dead (uncountable)

1. (often with "the") Time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is most intense.

   The dead of night. The dead of winter.

2. (with "the", a demonstrative, or a possessive) Those who have died.

   Have respect for the dead.

   The villagers are mourning their dead.

   The dead are always with us, in our hearts.

• (those who have died) deceased

• French: milieu, cœur, profondeurs
• Russian: середи́на

• French: morts
• German: Tote
• Portuguese: mortos
• Russian: мёртвый
• Spanish: muertos

dead (deads, present participle deading; past and past participle deaded)

1. (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”

2. (transitive) To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigour.

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

3. (UK, transitive, slang) To kill.

• deaden
• deadliness
• deadly
• deadness
• death
• undead