dead one n.
1. (also dead ’un) a second-rate racehorse; a horse that is deliberately ridden to lose.
‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 1 June 5/1: [D]apper little Hughes, ‘ther knacker’ az thay kawl him, koz he’s so parshall to ‘ded uns’. | ||
Herald (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 6/7: [G]reat fortunes are realised [...] by losing, not by winning horses. Hence [...] such phrases as ‘a dead un,’ ‘as good as boiled,’ and other sentences expressive of the advantage of betting against a horse that can by no possibility win. | ||
London Rev. 11 July 38/2: The stable and owners might safely lay against what was technically a dead ’un from the start [F&H]. | ||
Brisbane Courier 10 July 3/5: Such terms as ‘milking,’ ‘roping,’ ‘dead ’uns,’ &c., are highly suggestive, and it is quite probable each may be applicable to one or more horses amongst the sixty-five nominated for the Cup. | ||
Sporting Times 7 Jan. 5/1: A correspondent enquires whether a fiver lost over a ‘dead ’un’ can be called funeral note? | ||
Sl. Dict. 141: Dead’un a horse which will not run or will not try in a race, and against which money may be betted with safety. | ||
Vagabond Papers 2nd ser. 128: [O]utlawed black-legs, men who subsist by getting up sham ‘sweeps,’ or laying against ‘dead ’uns’. | ||
Social Sinners I 88: Lord, what dead ’uns he did back, to be sure! | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 7 May. 4/4: Harry Hill, the sporting ‘financier’ [...] is just dead. he made £250,000 laying against dead-uns. | ||
Truth (Sydney) 4 Nov. 6/1: I was busy at the time watching a red-hot dead ’un at the rear [i.e. of the race]. | ||
Artie (1963) 64: I would n’t like to start in and plug his game and then find myself on a dead one. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 19 May 24/1: Their comments on the number of dead ’uns were loud and deep. Truth to tell, [...] the safety of the stiffs lay in their numbers, for Rosehill is not as a rule a safe course for owners to make a cemetery of. | ||
Harking Back 22: The racing in those days was different to nowadays, for the best horse won – all being triers and no dead ’uns. | ||
Rolling Stone on the Turf 49: ‘Another bloody dead ’un has come home on me!’. | ||
Sporting Times 16: The ‘milk’ we heard so much of in operations against a dead ’un. | ||
Four-Legged Lottery 180: ‘And never back a dead ’un!’. | ||
Great Aust. Gamble 53: Skelton used to say that [...] he backed more ‘dead ’uns’ than any other man who went on a racecourse. | ||
He who Shoots Last 89: Backin’ deaduns ain’t a real smart caper. | ||
Drunk, Insane or Australian? 43: ‘Triers at the front line – dead ’uns at the back!’. | ||
Canberra Times (ACT) 3 Aug. 1/6: [in fig. use of a politician] Next year it was ‘Malcolm Fraser goes to the Randwick races on Saturday’ and he’s the biggest dead-un there and they’ve had a few. | ||
(con. late 19C) Lingo 142: An undertaker was a person who laid odds only against horses certain to lose, or dead ’uns. |
2. (US) a fool.
Referee 12 Feb. n.p.: A spark prop a pal (a good screwsman) and I / Had touched for in working two dead ’uns. | ‘A Plank Bed Ballad’ in||
Powers That Prey 39: ‘I want you to put me next.’ ‘What the blazes do you come to me about “next” for? I ain’t next to nothin’ in this town except you dead ones at the Front Office.’. | ||
Show Girl and Her Friends 62: I don’t care if a lot of people say Dopey is a dead one. | ||
West Broadway 21: I got to jazz up my mind on the kid's account — get some general culture and everything [...] so’s he won’t think I’m a dead one. | ||
Northern Whig 12 Sept. 8/6: I’d [...] took the rattler to Richmond where I piped a dead ’un and clicked. |
3. (US) an empty bottle.
Barkeep Stories 151: ‘Dthis bottle’s phwat thim race thrack fellys calls a dead wan.’ [...] ‘Dat shows you de way de graft is. De copper’s bottle is allus de first one dat gets emptied’. |
4. (US) a useless, unsociable, impoverished or mean person.
Barkeep Stories 23: ‘[H]e poured out a drink for himself and waved his arm in invitation to the seedy politician and [...] one or two more “dead ones” in the place to join him’. | ||
Prisoner at the Bar 117: [H]earing Pat remark to a fellow officer in no uncertain tones that ‘the old guy is no good—a “dead one”—I didn’t even get a smoke off him’. | ||
Torchy 262: Course, if you want a dead one on the gate, I can hand in my portfolio. | ||
Taking the Count 30: Why are you hooked up with a dead one like Billy Wade? | ‘Sporting Doctor’ in||
Keys to Crookdom 402: Dead one – person who is broke or incompetent. | ||
Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 60: DEAD ONE. – [...] One who refuses to accede to a plan or who is of no use in an enterprise. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
, | DAS. |
5. (US Und.) a reformed or retired tramp or criminal; .
World of Graft 193: The Dead Ones are the inhabitants of the Under World who have ‘squared it’—given up professional thieving and begun something else. | ||
Wichita Dly Eagle (KS) 24 Apr. 4/3: ‘I ain’t got no note,’ says 342, fivin’ de flys de merry ha-ha, ‘You wise guys are on a dead one’ he says. | ||
Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Oct. 5/1: He used to be a gope cracker, but four long stretches in the stir broke his heart and he’s a dead one now. | ||
AS I:12 650: Dead one—hobo who has retired from the road. A stingy person. | ‘Hobo Lingo’ in||
Hobo’s Hornbook 37: Frenchy Le Boeuf was a ‘dead one’. After quitting the road he settled down in Montreal. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
, | DAS. | |
World’s Toughest Prison 796: dead one – A reformed criminal. |
6. (US Und.) a thief who has lost their skills.
St. Paul Globe (MN) 3 June 5/6: [He] asserts that Charlie is a ‘dead one,’ meaning that he is no longer a skilful thief. |
7. (US) someone or something that is doomed, on the verge of death or actually dead.
Confessions of a Detective 29: Tammany is practical, and makes no fights for dead ones. | ||
Abe and Mawruss 143: After all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled along the sidewalk. | ||
(con. 1900s) Wash. Post 25 Jan. SM7: Jargon of the Juveniles Mother: [...] Dead one. | ||
Hull Dly Mail 23 May 3/5: Invading Hun Will be Dead ’Un. If the Hun comes here he is a dead ’un. | ||
Little Men, Big World 21: ‘What rumours?’ ‘About George Cline.’ [...] ‘A dead one, that’s for sure, Ben. I been hearing it for five years.’. |
8. of a sporting competition, a failure.
Sport (Adelaide) 8 Feb. 11/4: They Say [...] Don’t put your money on him every time, for he’ll swim a lot of dead ’uns. |
9. (US tramp) a drunk.
Milk and Honey Route 203: Dead one – A drunken hobo. Also a hobo who has just spent all his money. |
10. see dead president under dead adj.
In phrases
(US) to waste time; to act mistakenly.
Checkers 113: You’re ‘playing a dead one.’ It’s a hundred-to-one shot in the first place, and there is Arthur in the second. | ||
Salt Lake Trib. 15 Feb. 35/4: I knew what I was starting when I went into this baseball thing [...] and I have never played a dead one yet. |