Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. milit.) an empty bottle.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Dead-men empty-Pots or bottles on a Tarvern-table [sic].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1738		Swift Polite Conversation 83: lord sm.: Come, John, bring us a fresh Bottle. col.: Ay, my Lord; and pray let him carry off the dead Men (as we say in the Army.) [Meaning the empty bottles].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 151: I could perceive the wine bin, surrounded by a regiment of dead men.
1849		Chester Chron. 16 Nov. 3/2: They [...] drank [...] till they joined the ‘dead men’ (empty bottles) under the table.
1854		Preston Chron. 16 Dec. 7/3: The Castle at Richmond, where there are no charges but hotel charges, and the only dead men are empty bottles.
1855		Adelaide Times 7 Apr. 3/4: [T]he Castle at ltichmond, where there are no charges but hotel charges, and the only dead men are empty bottles.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
[1861		Hills & Plains I 173: [T]he quantity of long-necked, tin-crowned bottles, which lay, like dead men, on the floor].
1864		London Standard 13 Dec. 3/3: Among the words that fast society has borrowed [...] Dead Men, empty wine bottles.
1871		London Figaro 15 Apr. n.p.: [...] imperials were inconvenient and wasteful; and [...] it was far from easy to dispose of their corpses when they became dead men [F&H].
1871		Mercury (Hobart) 17 Nov. 2/6: ‘With some score thousand flasks supplied,’ of wine and still stronger liquors, left the bottles to the enemy, and conquered ‘where the dead men were empty flasks’ .
1879		Sheffield Indep. 8 Nov. 6/7: Lord Stanhope has gone down bottle in hand and dead men empty bottles are piled around him.
1884		Star (Guernsey) 25 Nov. 4/4: The ‘dead men’ amounted to twenty-five bottles of port, besides champagne and sherry.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1892		Aus. Star (Sydney) 5 Nov. 7/4: ‘[D]ead men,’ alias empty fizz-flagons, covered the carpet .
1900		Eve. Tel. (Dundee) 1 Sept. 3/6: The language of the London East-end pub [...] ‘Dead Man’ — Empty bottle.
1912		Sydney Morn. Herald 23 Mar. 6/1: ‘Are you in the business,’ he asked. ‘Not I, friend. I have my own. My dead men are empty bottles’ .
1916		Liverpool Echo 13 Apr. 6/6: There are many ‘dead men’ — empty bottles of this particular beer.
1968		A. Salkey Late Emancipation of Jerry Stover (1982) 29: Then they dangled the three ‘dead men’.
1973		Aus. Women’s Wkly 19 Sept. 97/1: [We] set about clearing weeds, rubbish and burrs, 500 ‘dead men’ (empty bottles), and one dead sheep!
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 48: Ten Gallon up and brained the Polack with a dead man of rum.

2. a baker; ‘Properly speaking, it is an extra loaf smuggled into the basket by the man who carries it out, to the loss of the master.’ (Hotten, 1864).

1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Dead men, a cant word among journeymen bakers, for loaves falsely charged to their master’s customers.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 16: Follow’d close on my gentleman, kneading his crum / As expertly as any Dead Man about town. [...] Dead Men are Bakers – so called from the loaves falsely charged to their master’s customers.
1824		Annals of Sporting 1 Mar. 198: Snips, snobs, saulies, sweeps, swells [...] dominies, deadmen, and dissenting ministers.
1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 27 Aug. 662/1: [He] was brought on suspicion of having, as the trade-phrase goes, buried a number of dead men, that is, charged to customers loaves that were never delivered to them .
1834		‘The Mill’ Museum of Mirth 45/1: ‘How do you bet your blunt?’ ‘Vy, I’m six to four on the dead man.’ ‘Why, I’m all for doughey myself.’ ‘Vat, de baker?’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict. 141: Dead man, a baker. Properly speaking, it is an extra loaf smuggled into the basket by the man who carries it out, to the loss of the master. Sometimes the dead man is charged to a customer, though never delivered. Among London thieves and low people generally a ‘dead’un’ is a half-quartern loaf.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. a scarecrow, esp. when made in the trad. manner of old clothes stuffed with straw.

1889–90

Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.

4. (Irish) a weekly insurance collector, whose policy pays off when one is dead.

1993

(con. 1930s) M. Verdon Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 206: They’d call the fellow collecting the insurance the ‘dead man’. ‘Did the dead man call to you yet?’.

5. (N.Z.) any large object (a baulk of timber, a steel stanchion, a lump of concrete etc) used as an anchor for hawsers, guy-ropes etc.

1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 35/1: deadman buried anchor adapted to support fenceposts.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

6. see dead president under dead adj.