Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a complete, irredeemable failure.

1844		in M. James Andrew Jackson (1937) 481: Clay [is] a dead political duck [DA].
1868		‘Hurrah for Grant!’ Grant Songster 3: We’ve had a tailor at the White House / Who called himself ‘dead ducks’.
1870		J.K. Medbery Men and Mysteries of Wall Street 135: The ‘Lame Duck’ is a broker who has failed to meet his engagements, and a ‘Dead Duck’ is one who is absolutely bankrupt past all recovery.
1888		N.Y. Clipper n.p.: Long Branch is said to be a dead duck [...] [F&H].
1910		Harrisburg Dly Indep. (PA) 26 May 4/3: Slang in baseball is a dead duck [...] ‘The Saturday Evening Post’ [...] demands that slang be skidooed on account of its ‘degredation of the sport’.
1948		Lait & Mortimer N.Y.: Confidential 24: The hotel grills and roofs, forced to go straight to protect huge investments, long were dead ducks by now and so were the hotels.
1954		J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 232: It’s all I have. I’m a dead duck without it.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 70: The whole scene is a long-gone dead duck.
1999		Indep. 24 July 3: Turkey is a dead duck this summer.

2. (also dead bird) a hopeless person, one who has absolutely no chance.

1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 Aug. 44/1: I had to make them drunk to get across, and, by Heavens, I’m nearly a dead bird myself.
1943		E. Pyle Here Is Your War (1945) 103: Not to go branded a man as a coward. To go might make him a slight hero or a dead duck.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 268: Emmerich’s a dead duck. Take my word for it.
1958		E. Dundy Dud Avocado (1960) 13: You’re a dead duck now, I told myself.
1968		G. Cuomo Among Thieves 411: This inmate Orninski is a dead duck.
1976		C. Dexter Last Seen Wearing in Second Morse Omnibus (1994) 450: Phillipson would be a dead duck then, and they’d have to appoint a new headmaster.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 1015: If Tom won’t kill, he’s apt to be a dead duck.
1999		Indep. Rev. 9 Sept. 1: He was happy to denounce Mr Hague off the record as a ‘dead duck’ who simply ‘hasn’t got it’.