adjective, -er, -est, noun, adverb | 1. | no longer living; deprived of life: dead people; dead flowers; dead animals. |
| 2. | brain-dead. |
| 3. | not endowed with life; inanimate: dead stones. |
| 4. | resembling death; deathlike: a dead sleep; a dead faint. |
| 5. | bereft of sensation; numb: He was half dead with fright. My leg feels dead. |
| 6. | lacking sensitivity of feeling; insensitive: dead to the needs of others. |
| 7. | incapable of being emotionally moved; unresponsive: dead to the nuances of the music. |
| 8. | (of an emotion) no longer felt; ended; extinguished: a dead passion; dead affections. |
| 9. | no longer current or prevalent, as in effect, significance, or practice; obsolete: a dead law; a dead controversy. |
| 10. | no longer functioning, operating, or productive: a dead motor; a dead battery. |
| 11. | not moving or circulating; stagnant; stale: dead water; dead air. |
| 12. | utterly tired; exhausted: They felt dead from the six-hour trip. |
| 13. | (of a language) no longer in use as a sole means of oral communication among a people: Latin is a dead language. |
| 14. | without vitality, spirit, enthusiasm, or the like: a dead party. |
| 15. | lacking the customary activity; dull; inactive: a dead business day. |
| 16. | complete; absolute: dead silence; The plan was a dead loss. |
| 17. | sudden or abrupt, as the complete stoppage of an action: The bus came to a dead stop. |
| 18. | put out; extinguished: a dead cigarette. |
| 19. | without resilience or bounce: a dead tennis ball. |
| 20. | infertile; barren: dead land. |
| 21. | exact; precise: the dead center of a circle. |
| 22. | accurate; sure; unerring: a dead shot. |
| 23. | direct; straight: a dead line. |
| 24. | tasteless or flat, as a beverage: a dead soft drink. |
| 25. | flat rather than glossy, bright, or brilliant: The house was painted dead white. |
| 26. | without resonance; anechoic: dead sound; a dead wall surface of a recording studio. |
| 27. | not fruitful; unproductive: dead capital. |
| 28. | Law. deprived of civil rights so that one is in the state of civil death, esp. deprived of the rights of property. |
| 29. | Sports. out of play: a dead ball. |
| 30. | (of a golf ball) lying so close to the hole as to make holing on the next stroke a virtual certainty. |
| 31. | (of type or copy) having been used or rejected. |
| 32. | Electricity.
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| 33. | Metallurgy. (of steel)
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| 34. | (of the mouth of a horse) no longer sensitive to the pressure of a bit. |
| 35. | noting any rope in a tackle that does not pass over a pulley or is not rove through a block. |
| 36. | the period of greatest darkness, coldness, etc.: the dead of night; the dead of winter. |
| 37. | the dead, dead persons collectively: Prayers were recited for the dead. |
| 38. | absolutely; completely: dead right; dead tired. |
| 39. | with sudden and total stoppage of motion, action, or the like: He stopped dead. |
| 40. | directly; exactly; straight: The island lay dead ahead. |
| 41. | dead in the water, completely inactive or inoperable; no longer in action or under consideration: Our plans to expand the business have been dead in the water for the past two months. |
| 42. | dead to rights, in the very act of committing a crime, offense, or mistake; red-handed. |
(bang) dead to rights
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dead
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"For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenail" (c.1350).
dead (děd)
adj.
Having lost life; no longer alive.
Lacking feeling or sensitivity; unresponsive.
dead to rights
In the act of committing an error or crime, red-handed. For example, They caught the burglars dead to rights with the Oriental rugs. This phrase uses to rights in the sense of "at once." [Slang; mid-1800s]