deadwood, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

deadwood n.

[pun]

1. (US) a coffin.

1846

Durivage & Burnham Stray Subjects (1848) 71: I foller not the trade / I did afore they made my bed / With mattock and with spade, / And I was took to my last home, / And in the dead wood laid.

2. one who is caught committing a crime.

1936

194019501960197019801990

1992

1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 120/2: deadwood. The thing an addict fears most: to be trapped by an agent posing as a panic man. Many addicts find it very difficult to resist a plea for dope from another addict who is desperate.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 92: Dead Wood [...] A person who is caught redhanded committing a crime.

3. a useless individual.

1939

19401950196019701980199020002010

2013

1939		J. O’Hara ‘Peggy’ in Files of Parade 21 Sept. 114: I heard several times how smart Bernette was in getting rid of deadwood, settling contracts with people that were drawing salary but not doing anything.
2013		T. Black ‘I Want Candy’ in Killing Time in Las Vegas [ebook] Delago was riding me: [...] ‘Get that fucking deadwood away from the dumpsters.’He was talking about the winos.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

have the deadwood on (v.) (also get the deadwood on, get/have/hold the wood on, have the deady on) [logging use, where a skilled axeman would cut a tree in such a way that he spared himself work by ensuring that any dead wood broke off by itself when the tree fell; alternate ety. suggests the shooting in the back of Marshall James Butler ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota on 2 August 1876; ? or in ten-pin bowling, if a single pin is left lying in front of those that have not been knocked down, hitting that ‘dead wood’ will knock it into the others, successfully knocking them all down]

(Aus./US) usu. of individuals, to have at a disadvantage, to control, esp. through the possession of incriminating information; occas. of inanimate object, see cite 1882 (2).

1851

190019502000

2003

1851		L. Clappe in Shirley Letters (1949) 52: If they ask a man an embarrassing question, or in any way have placed him in an equivocal position, they will triumphantly declare that they have ‘got the dead-wood on him’.
1865		M. MacFie Vancouver Island and British Columbia 415: If one have the best of a bargain, he is said to have got ‘the dead wood’ on the other party in the transaction.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 99: ‘You’ve got the “dead wood” on me, Colonel,’ said Bill despondingly. ‘I know it, and I knock under.’.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Mar. 7/4: Mary Welles, who was supposed to have the ‘dead wood,’ emotionally speaking, on a lucky young miner named Ben Jial [...] inasmuch as she had shaken all the boys for him.
1882		Sweet & Knox Sketches from ‘Texas Siftings’ 212: She extracted a twenty dollar bill, and remarked : ‘I reckon I’ve got the dead wood on that new bonnet I’ve been sufferin’ for.’.
1894		Advocate (Topeka, KS) 28 Mar. 3/2: He laughed as does the policeman who has ‘got the deadwood’ on some poor wretch.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Dec. 39/2: [W]id the exercise av a little ingenooity ’tis ahlways possible to git deadwood on arn’ry min loike thim.
1905		J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 77: deadwood, deady, n. Advantage, control. ‘I’ve got the deadwood/deady on you.’.
1910		Hawaiian Star (Honolulu) 28 May 7/3: Two New York Senators are bounced out for corruption, and they’ve got the deadwood on a dozen more.
1945		R.L. Bellem ‘Poison Payoff’ Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 But so far, I’ve never been able to get the deadwood on her.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 156: She’s got you taped, too, kid. She’s got the wood on all of us.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 257: There was nothing doing there while Pat had the dead wood on Jimmy Brockett.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 64: Give the Government their whack, if you can’t duck out of it – they’ve got the wood on you, anyway.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 107: The list of items valid in both countries is a long one and would include [...] have the wood on ‘have an advantage over’.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 77: Or I can turn tail and piss off like a dingo and know some sheila’s held the wood over me.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 124/1: wood have the advantage, often to have the wood on; as in woodchopping contests, at least from 1941.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].