Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one who receives goods or services without paying.

1841		in Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 23 Jan. 564: The house [...] was filled as far as $300 could fill it, barring ‘the dead heads.’.
1856		G.G. Foster N.Y. by Gas-Light (1990) 155: This is the reason why our theaters are now nearly deserted on ordinary occasions, save by dead-heads, rowdies and whoremongers.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 68: My daddy sold goods on credit [...] and when a customer run away, he used to codicil his name with ‘G.T.A.,’ gone to Arkansaw. What a power of dead heads must have roosted in them woods on the other side of Jordan!
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 363: The deadhead receives his newspapers without subscribing, travels free of charge on steamboat, railroad, and stage, walks into theatres and shows of every kind unmolested, and even drinks at the bar and lives at the hotel without charge.
1880		S.A. Mackeever Glimpses of Gotham and City Characters 15/2: Some [theater-goers] pay, but others are on the regular list as dead-heads, and [...] the idea of ‘giving up’ for an ordinary night strikes them with a cold horror.
1880		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 18 Sept. 6/1: I may add that there will be no Observer ‘dead heads.’ Representatives of this jovirnal going to the play will pay for their entertainment like everyone else.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 May 4/1: ‘Dead head Dave’ (Buchanan) has not been so enthusiastic in his dramatic notices of late. Free list entirely suspended.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Jan. 9/1: In the clarionet solo, introducing this touching ditty, we thought we recognised the gifted Howard’s cunning, till a brother ‘deadhead’ [i.e. newspaper critic] next to us said that poor Howard had, years ago, secured a six-foot, brass-plated, satin-lined ‘piner,’ and that it was Mr. Hodge (gods!) who was now wrestling with the instrument.
1886		Sporting Times 13 Feb. 1/5: ‘Well, old man,’ said the unabashed deadhead, ‘look here, give us your card, so that we can go to another show’.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 July 2/2: The champion deadhead has been discovered In Ohio. He is a boy, and he inquired at a circus side show [...] if Mr. Banyan was there. Being answered in the negative, he said: ‘Well, he’s mv father. Of course you’ll pass me in free’.
1890		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 9 Aug. 6/1: The dead-head is very much off here, the order is, no admittance without the ‘tanner,’ and [...] the ‘free list masher,’ who wishes to treat his best girl on the cheap, must seek elsewhere for prey.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 6 May. 1/6: The bankwet was a frost, only about fifty bein’ there, and nearly awl of them bein’ deadheads.
1896		Wallace Peck Story of a Train of Cars 19: Say, I ain’t no deadhead [...] This is my spree an’ I’m paying for it.
1900		‘Swears’ Chestnuts 75: Ourt spectators numbered about fifty, including a postman (admission free), and a policeman (also a dead head).
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 31 Jan. 1/1: The appetite of Perth policemen for free entertainment is stupendous in its effrontery [...] at a recent scrap eighteen plain and uniformed dead-heads roosted round the ring .
1905		Marvel III:53 2: But Kippers scorned to go in as a ‘deadhead’ tonight. He was bent on having an evening’s entertainment, and he meant paying for it.
1911		A. Bierce letter 27 Dec. in Pope Letters of Ambrose Bierce (1922) 182: Carrie will find that Misses C.and S. will be ‘no deadheads in the enterprise’.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 26 Dec. 8/2: The royal family of dead heads [...] are never seen at anything where there is money to pay .
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 316: The rest of us sits around like cheap deadheads that had been let in on passes.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 101: While he was impatiently waiting for the deadhead to come in, he was entertaining the crowd.
1929		T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 176: How many Dead Heads you got, son? [...] Do you ever try to collect from them?
1939		‘Hotel Sl.’ in AS XIV:3 Oct. 239/2: dead head Non-paying guest.
1943		J. Mitchell McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 125: I don’t allow no deadheads, and you know it.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 47: deadhead. Not only a stupid, boring person but from the 1840s one who doesn’t pay his way.

2. a non-participant, one who does not contribute; in cit. 1906, a stranger.

1863		Maine Board Agriculture Report 15: The milch cow which barely pays the expense of keeping and care is a ‘dead head,’ yielding no profit [DA].
1886		Melbourne Punch 10 June 9/1: But allowing the usual percentage for deadheads there ought to be enough mullets among that number to pay the remaining 25 sovs.
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 16 Nov. 2/2: He is down on dead-beats and dead-heads, and I don't blame him.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 13 Jan. 4/2: The very complaisant clique who own [railways] and run them in the interests of aristocratic ‘dead-heads’ and other ‘dead-beats’.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 44: I spots a deadhead in the audience.
1931		‘William Hatfield’ Sheepmates 139: A sleepyhead’s a deadhead in any stock camp.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 184: Rats, pigeons, stooges, shoret faders and crap catchers, deadheads and deadbeats.
1954		M. Rubin ‘Gold Ring’ in Margulies Back Alley Jungle (1963) 96: They were all regular except for one deadhead. [...] All she did was sit in a corner, complaining.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 368: You’re a deadhead, Johnny. Christ, the tourists in this town have more fun than you do.
1982		Eble Campus Sl. Fall 2: deadhead – one who seems dead [...] Joe was a deadhead at the party (and therefore no fun).

3. (US tramp, also deadheader) an empty freight car or freight train; one who rides it.

1898		H.E. Hamblen General Manager’s Story 24: He was a car repairer and was at work between two cars on the ‘dead-head.’.
1925		J. Tully Beggars of Life 203: He told me that a ‘dead head’ passenger coach was to leave for the west that night.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V x 444: Deadhead, one who steals a ride on a train.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 83: I jumped on a fast mail train. I had the ride of my life. I tried for a deadhead mail, that is what they call an empty mail coach which is being taken across country to be repaired.
1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 109: A deadhead, an empty mail car.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 56/2: Deadhead. 1. (Hobo) An empty train.
1950		‘Washington Daybook’ in News (Frederick, Maryland) 5 Jan. 4/3: Charles D. Waggner [is] trying to collect the lingo of the railroad [...] A sample of this pure American slang is – [...] dead headers.

4. a lazy worthless person.

1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 392: No, sir, we want no dead-head in our game any longer. He’s no benefit to us, none at all; so let’s settle up the game and give him his money.
1884		Semi-wkly South Kentuckian (Hopkinsville, KY) 12 Aug. 1/4: Oh yes, the editor is a deadhead [...] and if the deadhead don’t happen to find it out [...] he is bedamned for his lack of enterprise.
1891		Punch 11 Apr. 169: You’ll now have to take duffers, deadheads, and cads!
1895		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 27 July 1/6: [D]ead-heads [...] with big collars, thick sticks and no brains.
1899		J.W. Davis Gawktown Revival Club 24: Preaching to a set of dead-heads is not quite as bad as dunning a pack of dead beats.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Aug. 1st sect. 1/1: They Say [...] That some sports who lost their tin on Wells squealed ‘schlenter’ [...] That another disappointed dead-head is vowing vengeance per pistol.
1923		R. McAlmon Companion Volume 264: Who’d want to marry a deadhead like George?
1947		(con. 1942) J.H. Burns Gallery (1948) 177: He was doing a minimum of harm by reading letters, which after all was a job for a deadhead.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘The Fishing-Boat Picture’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 72: You booky bastard [...] nowt but books, books, books, you bleddy dead-’ead.
1966		C. Wood Fill the Stage With Happy Hours (1967) Act III: This place is full of deadheads, from the Council.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 215: They were real dead-heads and failed WOSB.
1983		A. Payne ‘Get Daley!’ Minder [TV script] 64: He won’t trust these deadheads unless you’re there.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 1: Shane is a dole bludger. He's always boracic. Mr Foster reckons he's a deadhead and he wouldn't work in an iron lung.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 127: In between [the extremes of insult] lies an enormous and subtly graded range of possibilities that include the following: [...] dead loss; dead head.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 20: Drinkin crap coffee an listenin to a loader deadheads whinge on.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 55: So what did the deadheads do? They only [...] tried to install the crudest bloody surveillance camera known to man.
2023		M. Herron Secret Hours 234: ‘Anarchists and deadheads, yes. And artists of every kind, from piss- to post-apocalyptic’.

5. (Aus.) an empty bottle.

1925

Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 12 Dec. 6s/2: Scattered about the floor were four empty whisky bottles. Bob picked up the ‘dead-heads’.

6. a fool.

1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 81: The producer who’s no deadhead is going to find out.
1961		M. Braly Felony Tank (1962) 111: What a bunch of deadheads.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 47: deadhead. Not only a stupid, boring person but from the 1840s one who doesn’t pay his way.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 92: deadhead is a person of low intelligence.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 172: It’s not about who can have a fight no more — it’s about who’s got the best plan. They’ll get onto that one day, them deadheads.
2007		D.S. Mitchell Killer Tune (2008) 46: Some dead-head petrol-bombed some house her brother shouldn’t have been playing in.

7. a state of non-communication.

2003

N. Griffiths Stump 74: Why the friggin deadhead, lar? I mean, you’ve been blankin me since —.