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deadline

 - 3 dictionary results

dead⋅line

  [ded-lahyn]
–noun
1. the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time for finishing something: a five o'clock deadline.
2. a line or limit that must not be passed.
3. (formerly) a boundary around a military prison beyond which a prisoner could not venture without risk of being shot by the guards.
Use deadline in a Sentence
Origin:
1855–60; dead + line 1
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
Cite This Source Link To deadline
dead·line   (děd'līn')   
n.  

  1. A time limit, as for payment of a debt or completion of an assignment.

  2. A boundary line in a prison that prisoners can cross only at the risk of being shot.

tr.v.   dead·lined, dead·lin·ing, dead·lines
To govern by setting a time limit: "He was never going to be deadlined by a day, or even a month" (New Yorker).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

deadline 
"time limit," 1920, Amer.Eng. newspaper jargon. Perhaps influenced by earlier use (1864) to mean the "do-not-cross" line in Civil War prisons:
"Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the 'dead-line,' over which no man could pass and live." [Lossing, 1868]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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