dead as..., adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

dead as... adj.

used in a variety of phrs. meaning absolutely dead (see also combs. below).

1612		N. Field Woman is a Weathercock IV ii: pouts.: Strange murdered on the wedding-day by you, At his own bride’s appointment, for my sake? strange.: As dead as charity.
1788		Morris et al. ‘Knowing Joe’ Festival of Anacreon (1810) 52: I dropp’d down, dead as a shot.
1829		Leicester Jrnl 4 Dec. 4/5: ‘Dead as a herring,’ he exclaimed, throwing down his gun.
1837		R. Barham ‘The Grey Dolphin’ Ingoldsby Legends I (1866) 43: He was as dead as ditch-water!
1846		Spirit of Democracy (Woodsfield, OH) 19 Sept. 1/6: I let fly at the she bar [i.e. bear] [...] Over she rolled as dead as a mackerel.
1849		Taunton Courier 3 Jan. 8/1: As live as a bird — as dead as a stone.
1853		West Kent Guardian 19 Mar. 3/6: The herring is a delicate fish [...] hence the proverb ‘as dead as a herring’.
1865		‘Mr Carlisle’ Stray Leaves 183: There he was, ‘dead as herrings that are red’.
1875		Leeds Times 27 Feb. 2/5: He [...] faints as dead as a flounder.
1878		F.H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 68: They hung him as dead as a nit.
1884		C.F. Lummis letter 13 Nov. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 90: He was as dead as Adam is.
1893		Eve. Star (DC) 27 Oct. 4/2: Mr Wade [...] was dead as Abel.
1894		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 19 Sept. 2/6: He threatened to fill the shopkeeper ‘as dead as a mackerel’.
1897		Kipling Captains Courageous 4: Say, gen’elmen, this is deader ’n mud.
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Jan. 14/1: There was Dick swingin’ like a penjulum out in space, dead as a pick-head.
1905		Marvel III 6: She’s as dead as a jint of hot roast beef!
1908		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 304: dead as Hector, adj. phr. Entirely dead.
1923		(con. 1917–18) T. Boyd Through the Wheat 199: ‘Where’s Lieutenant Bedford?’ [...] ‘Dead as hell,’ he was answered.
1928		J. Peterkin Scarlet Sister Mary 93: Why’n you bank de fire last night? E’s dead as a wedge.
1934		Z.N. Hurston Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1995) 7: Ah’ll knock yuh dead ez Hector.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 45: If he ever heard tell of him layin’ a whip on his hawse agin he was gointer take and kill John’s hawse dead as a nit.
1937		J.M. Cain Serenade (1985) 205: From some of them you get a beat as dead as an undertaker’s handshake.
1938		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 12 Sept. 6/3: Stand back or I’ll drop you as dead as a maggot. I will drop you cold.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 35: They find him [...] with a couple o’ slugs in his back, dead as Moses.
1950		A. Christie Murder Is Announced (1958) 114: Surely that’s dead as the hills.
1955		(con. 1944) H. Robbins A Stone for Danny Fisher 299: This time yuh try an’ run me aroun’ an’ yuh’re deader’n hell.
1961		M. Terry Old Liberty (1962) 113: The Communist Party is dead as a pumpkin in the U.S.
1968		J. Alard He who Shoots Last 59: Dey’re dead all right, dead as a Sunday school picnic.
1975		B. Greer Slammer (1977) 95: Stabbed him thirty times or so with screwdrivers. Deader than Swiss cheese.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 238: You’ll be dead as dogmeat.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 7: Dead as a nail in a coffin, Inspector. [Ibid.] 19: Louie was as dead as yesterday’s newspapers.
1985		(con. 1968) D.A. Dye Citadel (1989) 125: The Goddam ricochets offa them dudes’ll kill you dead as dog shit.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 33: He’s deader’n gramma’s clit. [...] He’s deader’n John De Lorean’s MasterCard.
1986		S. King It (1987) 928: He’s just as dead as a fencepost.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 227: The guy [...] is as a dead as a mutton chop. He’s dead as a weekend in Dubuque.
2017		Star (Jamaica) 13 Nov. 🌐 ‘We learnt from the hospital that she was there. When we arrived she was dead as nit’.

In phrases

...a doornail (also dead as a coffin nail, ...hangnail, ...nail) [SE doornail, the large-headed nails with which doors were studded for extra strength and protection; 17C+ use is SE]

c.1350		William of Palerne 628: For but ich haue bote of mi bale I am ded as dorenail [OED].
c.1367–86		Langland Piers Ploughman (1550) I Biii line 185: That Faythe is right nothing worth And as deade as a dore-nayl.
1592		Shakespeare Henry VI Pt 2 IV x: If I do not leave you all as dead as a door nail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.
1599		Nashe Praise of the Red Herring 47: Down she sunk to the earth, as dead as a doore naile, and neuer mumpt crust after.
1608		R. Armin Nest of Ninnies 11: But now the thought of the new come foole so much moued him, that he was as dead as a doore-nayle.
1658		Mennis & Smith ‘The Blacksmith’ Wit Restor’d (1817) 281: When you meet with naughty beere or ale, You cry it is as dead as a dore nayle.
1661		‘Peter Aretine’ Strange Newes 1: Bonny Bette. [...] Is trading quick or dead? Moll. As dead as a dore nail.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk IV 70: Wilt thou cut Faces evermore, / For Husband dead as Nail and Door?
1670		J. Ray Proverbs 202: As dead as a door nail.
1700		Farquhar Constant Couple IV ii: He’s dead as a door-nail; for I gave him seven knocks on the head with a hammer.
1727		J. Gay ‘A New Song of New Similes’ Poetical Works II (1854) 181: Soon as dead as a door-nail / Shall I be, if without her.
1733		Laugh and Be Fat 144: Lo, here she lies without Bed or Blanket, / Dead as a Door-Nail. God be thanked.
1790		Dying Groans of Sir John Barleycorn 4: In company with good wife’s member-mugs, where I must stand in the stink until starved as dead as a doornail.
1794		Sporting Mag. July IV 234/1: But soon dead as a door nail / Shall I be without her.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 245: I lie dead as a door-nail.
1830		Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 16: Och, he is as dead as a door nail.
1841		‘A Letter [...] From Peter Strongbow etc.’ Dublin Comic Songster 310: Dead as a door nail, Paddy, my belly as full as salt wather.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 109: dead as a door nail. Utterly, completely dead. The figure is that of a nail driven into wood, and, therefore, perfectly immovable; the word door is used for the sake of the alliteration. It is sometimes changed with us into the less appropriate phrase, ‘As dead as a hammer’.
1849		Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 Feb. 3/2: He knew his client, Mr. Kearney to be as dead a nail as himself.
1851		G. Borrow Lavengro III 165: ‘Is she dead, then?’ ‘As a nail, brother.’.
1864		J.F. Brobst letter in Brobst Well Mary, Civil War Letters 45: That would have killed me dead as a doornail.
1871		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 9 Dec. 669: There is another class of similes scarcely as pertinent; as, for instance: [...] talk to him like a Dutch uncle; smiling as a basket of chips; odd as Dick’s hatband; [...] sleep like a top; run like thunder; deader than a door-nail.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 23: He’s gone dead – dead as a coffin nail.
1885		Hants. Teleg. 16 May 11/7: ‘Dead, hey?’ remarked Barnum. ‘As a coffin nail, sir,’ replied the keeper.
1889		B. Mitford Fire Trumpet III 240: He’s dead as a doornail, bedad.
1891		C.F. Lummis New Mexico David 92: Both ’peared dead ’s nails.
1898		F.W. Hume Hagar of the Pawn-Shop 68: ‘Dead!’ ‘As a doornail!’ replied the detective.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 8 June 564: Three male herons [...] had been picked up by the Squire’s keeper as dead as a door-nail.
1910		B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 440: dead as a doornail, adj. phr. Entirely dead.
1918		J.E. Rendinell diary 17 July One Man’s War (1928) 143: We [...] took a crack at him finely brought the German down as dead as a doornail.
1921		D.L. Sayers Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1977) 138: All those refrigerated old imbeciles [...] comin’ in and noddin’ to the old guv’nor like so many mandarins, when he was as dead as a doornail all the time.
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 1: The animal might be as dead as a door-nail.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 103: It’s dead as a doornail, you old sonofabitch.
1933		J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 127: All the people [...] lie here, dead as a hangnail.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 44: They were as dead as doornails.
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 241: Dead as a doornail up in Syria. I’ve got my company and we just potter about trying to stop Jerry if he comes through Turkey.
1962		(con. 1930s) H. Simmons Man Walking On Eggshells 92: That was the lick, the lick that laid poor Dick out deader than a doornail.
1966		Western Folklore XXV:3 195: As dead as a doornail.
1974		(con. 1945) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 380: He was just a boy [...] and dead as a doornail.
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 74: Voot was as dead as a doornail.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 1021: America is dead, dead as a doornail.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 94: Poxy town is as dead as a doornail.
1999		S. Grafton O is for Outlaw (2000) 369: You know, offed. Eliminated. Kilt him deader than a doornail.
2000		Guardian Rev. 5 Feb. 2: ‘As bright as? ...as cool as? ...as dead as? ...’ [...] ‘a button’, ‘a cucumber’, ‘a doornail’.

...dogshit

see under dogshit n.

...Kelsey’s nuts

see under Kelsey’s nuts n.

...mutton

see under mutton n.