Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) to kill, to hang.

1791		H. Lemoine ‘Education’ in Attic Misc. 117: The dolman sounding, while the sheriff's nod, / Prepare the snitcher to dead hook the whack.
1824		‘Sonnets for the Fancy’ (Egan Boxiana III) 622: The dolman sounding, while the sheriff’s nod / Prepare the switcher to dead book the whack.

(Aus. und.) plunder that is difficult to get rid of.

1901

Maryborough Chron. (Qld) 30 Sept. 4/2: When finally in his hands it is described as ‘laid,’ while stolen stuff that is easily identifiable as dead swag, and can only be sold as chopped stuff when broken up.

(Aus./US) to have at one’s mercy; to dominate completely, to astound.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Oct. 12/4: When the P.D. [corset] knocks at the door of even the least susceptible man’s heart he surrenders his discretion. He is lost. The girl has ‘got him dead.’.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Dec. 25/2: Nobody gave the newcomer a ‘hand’ on her first appearance, but at the end of the act she’d ‘got ’em dead,’ and was re-called several times.
1908		‘Old Sleuth’ Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 104: ‘I’ve got everything dead.’ ‘I see you have.’ ‘Then it’s for you to lay in for all the favors you can get.’.

see man alive n.

1. stupid, dull-witted.

1829		Berks. Chron. 27 June 2/2: The Brunswickers were asleep, but not dead-alive, although in a state of somnolency.
1839		Westmorland Gaz. 22 June 1/2: The Dead-Alive Government [...] as a body, a cabinet, a government [...] they are defunct, insensate, moribund, dead, to all intents and purposes.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. of a person, miserable, down in the mouth; of a place, depressed, depressing.

1825		Examiner 10 Apr. 7/2: Miss Graddon’s acting was improved, even into animation, in the dead-alive scene.
1834		Morn. Chron. 17 Mar. 1/5: Lawrence and Jackson gone, Stothard and Smike and poor Newton dead-alive, and Leslie emigrated.
1846		Cork Examiner 4 Sept. 4/5: Proper houses or cottages for the peasant labourers of Ireland, instead of damp styes [...] in which these dead-alive unfortunates are forced to dwell.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 109: dead-alive. Dull, inactive, moping.—Barnes’s Dorset Gloss. We often hear the expression, ‘He is a dead-alive sort of a man’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1884		H.D. Traill in Eng. Illus. Mag. I, 541: The city has greatly revived of late... it has ceased to belong to the category of the dead-alive, and has entered that of the lively [F&H].
1898		Coconino Sun (Flagstaff, AZ) 19 Nov. 3/2: My friend, from the deadalive town of Nogood / If you would keep far away.
1901		‘Miles Franklin’ My Brilliant Career 16: It’s the dead-and-alivest hole I ever seen.
1912		E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 250: Of all the dead-and-alive holes this is one.
1929		‘Henry Green’ Living (1978) 251: You’re a young man and this place will seem to you a dead alive sort of hole.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 222–3: She suddenly took to writing letters even more discouraging than those of Oscar, saying that Capricornia was a dead-and-alive hole, that the climate was hellish.
1947		J. Symons Man Called Jones (1949) 66: It’s been a dead-and-alive morning – until you gentlemen came.
1960		(con. c.1918) D. Holman-Hunt My Grandmothers and I (1987) 18: It’s a dead-alive place in the winter.
1975		D. Davin Breathing Spaces 46: You felt the place wasn’t such a dead-alive hole, after all.

see separate entries.

1. (Aus.) a certain bet, a sure thing.

1887		Maitland Mercury 28 May 3/5: The Hurry Scurry was a great boil over as Snider was looked upon as a ‘dead bird,’ but he could only get third to the dispised Wallaby and the veteran Claudius.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 July 15/1: All the while, however, bookmaker Bob Phillips was making a volume for the despised gelding and letting his most intimate friends know that he had the proverbial dead-bird up his inevitable sleeve.
1897		Capricornian (Rockhampton, Qld) 6 Feb. 30/4: I never let my moke go unless I’ve got a pretty sure thing on [...] I never let him race unless he’s a dead bird.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 59: DEAD BIRD: a certainty, i.e. a horse to win. [...] General use: anything absolutely certain to result or occur.
1908		E.G. Murphy ‘Slingin’ Tips’ in Jarrahland Jingles 39: Ev’ry one a real dead-bird.
1911		L. Esson Sacred Place in Three Short Plays 43: Reynolds gave me a tip – a deadbird.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 10: bird: A certainty. Especially, ‘make a dead bird of something.’.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 47: One of these days we’d strike a race with most of ’em in it and then we’d be betting on a dead bird.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 232/1: dead bird – an absolute certainty.
1973		(ref. to 1890s) ‘Gloss. of Larrikin Terms’ in J. Murray Larrikins 202: dead bird: a horse certain to win.
1996		Ozwords Oct. 🌐 dead bird (often shortened to bird): an absolute certainty to win. This term was established in Australian horseracing circles by the 1880s, a transferred use from pigeon shooting where a pigeon about to be released and shot by a marksman was regarded as being as good as dead.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 6: A ‘good thing’ might also have been referred to as a ‘sure thing,’ or a ‘certain cop,’ or a ‘sure cop,’ or a ‘dead bird’ or a ‘dead cert’.

2. (US prizefighting) a boxer who has agreed to lose a fight.

1894

Mirror of Life 27 Jan. 3/3: McAuliffe was declared the winner, and [...] Ryan was as ‘dead as a door nail’ before he entered the ring. [...] I presume McAuliffe would not go ahead with the match unless Ryan agreed to enter the ring a ‘dead bird’.

3. (US) a hopeless case or situation.

1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 73: If you ain’t got nobody to go to the front for you it’s a dead bird.
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.

a down-and-out.

1866		Hereford Jrnl 24 Feb. 7/6: Dead Broker.—When broker loses all his money he is dead broke, but when he dies is a dead broker.
1908		Gloucs. Echo 15 May 3/3: The Clerk: What is his business? Supt. Cook: He is a dealer. Defendant: I’m a dead broker (laughter).
1945		Baker Aus. Lang.

(US) lacking energy, listless, lifeless.

1958

E. Gilbert Vice Trap 22: I was pretty sore at that dead-butt grease monkey.

1. (US) something or someone that is unlucky, unfashionable or unpopular, thus phr. on a dead card, out of luck.

1877		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 2 mar. 4/1: The similarity of names [i.e. of two companies up for investment] led many people to put their money on a dead card.
1880		St Louis Post-Dispatch (MS) 22 Mar. 2/1: Mr Allen regards Tilden as a dead card politically.
1891		Buffalo Commercial (NY) 5 June 5/3: ‘Dammit [...] I’m on a dead card again’.
1894		Chattanooga Dly Times (TN) 24 Sept. 8/4: An’ now, Billy, dat you is a dead card in polatix, I kin give you a speakin’ part in my show “On De Bowery”’.
1895		Mirror of Life 7 Dec. 3/4: Corbett cannot fail to realise that be is at present a ‘dead card’ as far as the sporting fraternity is concerned.
1900		A.H. Lewis Sandburrs 60: One of d’ city’s jackleg sawbones is there, mendin’ Emmer wit bandages. But he says himself he’s on a dead card, an’ that Emmer’s going to die.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 218: Nix! You got your money on a dead card. We follow the horses.
1911		Eve. Bull. (Honolulu) 16 Sept. 10/4: One more fiasco like this and wrestling is a dead card in Chicago.

2. used of an individual, one who is characterless, dour.

1920

Wash. Times (DC) 14 Nov. 19/1: They did not like to see one of their own Gang put out in front to get the Gaff [...] They preferred that it should be some Dead Card who wore Congress Gaiters and Throat Warmers.

(UK Und.) the proceeds of a robbery that have turned out to be less valuable than hoped.

1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: dead Cargo a Term also used by Rogues, when they are disappointed in the Value of their Booty.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 314/1: dead cargo, [...] butin qui ne répond pas à l’attente des voleurs.

(US) a doomed person, a lost soul.

2001

Mila De La Hunt ‘The Rocking Chair’ on Mobius 🌐 Julian calls me every day but I don’t come to the phone. ‘The first time I see him, he’s a dead chicken,’ I say to my husband.

(UK Black / gang) an area that is invisible to CCTV cameras.

2016

Guardian G2 1 Sept. 25/2: dead-drop area — no CCTV.

see separate entry.

the vagina.

1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 185: The anatomical relationship of the bower of bliss and its main channel is indicated in such phrases as […] hoop, leading article, dead end street and house under the hill.
1997		Solar Project ‘Zeitgest’ 🎵 on ...in Time [album] You sit on my face, I dine at your Y / Blow job, gob job, sixty-eight / You feed your face and eat my meat / My fist into your Dead End Street.

see separate entries.

1. (US) a rough saloon; thus attrib.

1837		A. Wetmore Gazetteer Missouri 337: At a small pot-house grocery or dead-fall of the village [...] there was a lingerer .
1856		N.O. Weekly Delta 23 Nov. p.1 in A.P. Hudson Humor of the Old Deep South (1936) n.p.: We adjourned over to the nearest dead-fall, tuck a whoppin’ horn of Ball Face.
1858		True American (Steubenville, OH) 18 Aug. 3/1: An Irishman by the name of Brogan, wh keeps a dead-fall doggery on North 3d Street.
1866		W. Hilleary diary 22 Mar. in A Webfoot Volunteer (1965) 170: The lovers of ‘red eye’ were loth to leave the ‘dead falls’.
1875		Affairs in Alabama II 841: A ‘Dead-fall’ is simply a small shop or store where for a few pounds of stolen cotton or a measure of corn, white thieves give whiskey to black ones .
1883		Sacramento Dly Record-Union (CA) 18 Aug. 8/2: Effect of the Licence Law in Ohio [...] Factory Hill, Commercial Street and the Hay Markket [...] still flourish [...] and show up precisely the same list of dead-falls.
1894		Eve. World (NY) 10 July 3/4: One day he went over to the Dead Fall saloon [...] Them folks at the Dead Fall [...] wanted to make trouble.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 375: Our party lose over a half-million in that Barclay Street deadfall during the past year.
1917		Hawaiian Gaz. (Honolulu) 23 Jan. 4/1: The Country Dead-Fall. The saloon has no place in the country districts, and the sooner all such are abolished, the better.
1933		(con. 1870s–80s) H. Asbury Barbary Coast (2002) 103: A solid mass of dance-halls, melodeons, cheap groggeries, wine and beer dens, which were popularly known as deadfalls.
1940		(ref. to 1857) H. Asbury Gangs of Chicago (2002) 51: The little nest of gamblers dominated by the patrician John Sears had become, in 1857, a large and discordant colony of deadfalls and skinning joints.
1942		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 4 Oct. [synd. col.] Keenan Wynn [...] supported by a horde from the 42nd Street deadfalls, gave [the show] plenty of life.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 230: Milwaukee is loaded with dead-falls, joints, clip-dives and carnival midway attractions, cheap, corny and crummy.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 141: She must have been old enough to hang around the local deadfalls.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 127: It was [...] tacked onto the rear of an ordinary old nigger whorehouse on an unpaved deadfall called Moseley.
1993		W. Blevins Dict. of the Amer. West : deadfall A low-class den of drink and gambling.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

2. a cheap, poss. corrupt casino.

1868		Norfolk Virginian (VA) 24 Oct. 1/2: A trio of negroes [were] charged with gambling in a ‘dead fall’ on the corner of union Street and hardy’s lane.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 366: The games [of faro] were conducted, in what were called ten per cent. houses, or, as classically rendered by the masses who patronized them, ‘wolf-traps,’ or ‘dead-falls’.
1879		Dly Globe (St Paul, MN) 29 Oct. 1/4: Almost unconscious from the effects of his frequent libations he was steered by his companions to a ‘dead-fall’ gambling house.
1892		Chariton Courier (Keytesville, MO) 1 Jan. 1/6: Had he been back by the citizens and public sentiment [...] the gamlbing dead fall would not exist as a menace.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 12: I now rises to ask what for a limit do you put on this deadfall anyhow?
1938		(con. c.1835–55) H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 185: Those extraordinary gambling dens generally known as Wolf-Traps, but sometimes as Snap Houses, Deadfalls and Ten Per Cent Houses, are said to have originated in Cincinnati about 1835.

3. a store, posing as an auction house, that exists to defraud its customers.

1939

O. Ferguson ‘The Boy from the Back Row’ in New Republic 17 May47/1: [He] had a brother in one of those fast-talk auction deadfalls along the Boardwalk, he looked wrong enough to scare you.

(Irish) an attractive young woman.

1997

Share Slanguage.

(US) an impoverished individual; one who has lost all their money gambling.

1920

T.A. Dorgan Judge Rummy’s Court 25 Feb. [synd. strip cartoon] Hey Judge — let’s have a couple of bucks till Saa’dy night, will ya? Ima D.F. (dead fish).

see squashed flies n.

1. (US) dissolute; ostentatious, boastful; usu. as dead-game sport.

1877		Clearfield Republican (PA) 21 Nov. 4/4: I divide brave men into game and dead game. A game man is governed somewhat by pride and duty; a dead-game man has neither.
1881		J.E. Badger Joaquin, the Terrible 31/2: Gentleman Dave, the Dead Game Sport.
1895		Courier (Lincoln, NE) 19 Jan. 4/2: My friends would be greatly surprised if they knew that I had married a dead game sport.
1910		O. Johnson Varmint 302: In your dead-game sporting days did you ever, by chance, paint your nicotine fingers with iodine?
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 28 Mar. 12/2: Oh the pledges we make and the vows we take / On the morning after! / [...] / As dead-game sports we’re as mud in the rain / On the morning after.
1918		Monroe City Democrat (MO) 1 Nov. 7/2: He endeavoured to demonstrate to the ‘boys’ that he was a dead game sport [...] he set up drinks with lavish generosity.
1920		Clio Messenger (MI) 15 Jan. 7/1: He was a dead game gambler, an’ played fer big stakes.
1952		Hal Boyle Associated Press 9 Aug. n.p.: He had [...] the nonchalant air of a dead-game guy ready for any adventure [W&F].

2. brave, indomitable.

1915		J.F. Brown diary 13 Feb. in DeWolfe Howe Harvard Volunteers (1916) 212: Our blessé is to go to the hospital at C—, ‘vitement.’ He is like most of them—badly wounded and dead game!
1972		E. Shrake Strange Peaches 372: ‘Dorothy, tell them I was dead game to the end,’ I said.
1991		D. Jenkins You Gotta Play Hurt 64: Sadly, however, the dead-game little Albanian couldn’t match his Lauberhorn feat.
2012		J. Harper ‘Lucy in the Pit’ in ThugLit Sept./Oct. [ebook] Dogs that scratch even when they’re close to death, who’d rather die than give up, you call those dogs ‘dead game’.

see separate entries.

1. mutual orgasms.

1783

Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies 45: We would advise her antagonist to push the warm contest with agility, or it will not be a dead heat.

2. (Aus.) a necktie [pun on SE (neck)tie/tie (dead heat or draw)].

1983

R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 10: The group were all well dressed and most of them were wearing whistle and flutes and dead-heats around their Gregory Pecks.

see separate entries.

1. (Aus.) a room in an outback public house set aside for those who are incapably drunk.

1865		Australasian (Melbourne) 8 Apr. 7/3: In the afternoon prosecutor had a drink In the bar, and afterwards went into the ‘dead-house.’ Mr. Adamson—What is the dead-house? Prosecutor.—It is a place where they put people to sleep, so they call it the dead house. [...] Mr. Adamson.—What state were you in when you went into the dead-house ? Prosecutor (coolly).—I was what they call drunk.
1867		Queenslander (Brisbane) 15 June n.p.: At the bush public houses any hole is supposed to be good enough for them [i.e. drunks] to sleep in [...] the dormitory provided [...] going by the name of ‘the Lushington crib’ or ‘the dead house’.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 352: He was snoring in a back room, like a man in the deadhouse of a bush shanty.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer I 214: I remember coming to myself in the dead-house of a bush inn once.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Dec. 14/3: The shanty-keeper didn’t know that Andy had been seasoned by his between-time short ‘drunks,’ and when he thought his victim had become stupid enough, he turned him into the ‘dead-house’ at the rear and piled round him a host of empty bottles.
1905		Duke Tritton’s Letter n.p.: I rambled over to the Rubbity Dub and had a pint of Oh My Dear. In fact I had several and finished up in the dead house, broke to the wide.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Oct. 44/1: The drunks’ bottle contained mostly water; occasionally it was ‘dosed’ and put the recipient to sleep, when he could be conveniently stowed away in the dead-house – minus his cheque. [...] When he came to his senses he found a horrifying array of dead marines strewn about him.
1944		in A. Marshall These Are My People (1957) 143: I always wake up in the dead house or in a camp fire.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 59: dead house A hotel shed where drunks were dumped. ANZ.

2. (US) a cheap or particularly unappealing bar or saloon.

1891		Jewell Co. Rev. (Mankato, KS) 26 Mar. 3/5: The whiskey dealer does well, even to the man who keeps a ‘dead house’ and sells alleged whiskey at 5 cents a drink and two drinks to a gill.
1893		World (NY) 21 Dec. 9/4: ‘A dead house?’ ‘Yes. A saloon where we kin get two mugs of ale for six cents’ [...] At Callahan’s The Mystic ordered two ‘mugs of cheap’.
1897		Chicago Trib. 14 July 2/5: [headline] War on the cheap drink saloons [...] The initial step against the ‘dead houses’ was taken last Saturday.
1925		H. Leverage ‘Dict. Und.’ in Flynn’s mag. cited in Partridge DU (1949).

3. (US tramp) a saloon that does not offer a free lunch.

1892

Sun (NY) sec. B 11 Sept. 12/5: The tramp has created a unique classification of saloons he frequents [...] either a ‘dead house’ or a ‘free’. The dead houses’ are saloons selling five-cent whiskey and having no free lunch. The frees are saloons selling ten-cent whiskey and providing a free lunch.

4. (US) a prison.

1980

N. Algren ‘No More Christmases’ in Entrapment (2009) 262: Slip the cuffs on! Bust the Big Man! Put me in the deadhouse, Oliver!

(US) an empty bottle.

1965

A. Borowik Lions, Three: Christians, Nothing 42: It’s looking for old wine in new bottles which is a waste of time and if there are a lot of bottles it can get pretty dull [...] hence the expression ‘dead Indians’ [HDAS].

(Aus.) deceit, cunning; thus dead-knowledge man, a cunning or deceitful man.

1905		Shearer (Sydney) 2 Dec. 4/5: They have grown hoary in beggary, falsehood, cunning, generalship, servility, ‘dead knowledge’ and debauchery, and are a curse and a menace about stations [AND].
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 Jan. 14/2: An old swaggie – a genuine ‘dead-knowledge man’ – on the Darling told me how some years previously he had wanted a letter written, and [...] determined to master the art.

(UK Und.) one who is certain to be imprisoned.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 46/1: Don’t you let a single fellow open the door on me, else I’m a ‘dead lag’.

a down-and-out, a failure.

1977

(con. 1961) J. Rosenthal Spend, Spend, Spend Scene 19: You’ll get your beer and Woodbines, you bloody deadleg! I won’t see you short!

the eyes.

1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 170: His dead lights are up, and skylights clos’d.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 159: I bunged up both eyes for him, and put in the dead lights in two tu’s.
1840		E. Howard Jack Ashore I 304: Then down with your deadlights, show your papers, whence from, where bound to?
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 12 Nov. n.p.: ‘He had stove in her deadlights with his jib-boom, and his cut-water was just over her cat-heads’.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 385: She was always dropping it [i.e. a glass eye] out and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty.
1884		Henley & Stevenson Admiral Guinea I vi: O, I can hear a flea jump! But it’s here where I miss my deadlights.
1915		Richmond Time Dispatch (VA) 2 May 51/3: [cartoon caption' Ding Bust Your Deadlights!
1918		Garland City Globe (UT) 21 Nov. 6/2: Blawst my deadlights, an’ this ’ere (pointing to me) is what I’m to work with.
1921		Amarillo Dly News (TX) 16 Oct. 24/1: [cartoon caption] If it Ain’t Kids It’s Dogs Wots Gotta Souse Me Deadlights.

see under line n.¹

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

see separate entry.

an empty bottle (cit. 1903 refers to a cask).

1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Marine officer, an empty bottle, (sea wit) marine officers being held useless by the seamen.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) [as cit. 1785].
1805		J. Davis Post Captain (1813) 26: You steward! don’t you see this bottle is a marine.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1829		Northampton Mercury 27 June 2/2: He piped all hands and made them finish the bottle, declaring that if he rose again he would find nothing but a dead marine.
1831		E.J. Trelawny Adventures Younger Son (1835) 23: To see their case-bottles properly filled, no marines among them,with plenty of grog in their lockers .
1831		Navy at Home II 227: ‘Boy! take these here marine officers off the table,’ pushing the empty bottles to one side.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 172: MARINE, or marine recruit, an empty bottle.
1865		G.F. Berkeley My Life etc. II 302: Our host did wake, but seeing a bottle with wine in it, closed his eyes, and Loraine soon made another marine .
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1860].
1880		J.B. Stephen ‘Drought and Doctrine’ in Sladen Aus. Ballads (1888) 240: We filled a dead marine, Sir, at the family watering-hole.
1893		H. Lawson ‘The Darling River’ in Roderick (1972) 87: When the louth chaps see an unbroken procession of dead marines for three or four days they know that Bourke’s drunk.
1906		Gadfly (Adelaide) 18 July 18/2: On Saturday night, June 30, the local bung turned on the beer-tap for the last time, and the town on Sunday morning was a dead marines’ cemetery.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Sept. 4/7: I’m pinched by a burly pea jist as I’m gettin’ away with a bag of marines from a woodshed.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Oct. 44/1: When he came to his senses he found a horrifying array of dead marines strewn about him.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 73: Dead marine: An empty bottle.
1928		Mail (Adelaide) 4 Feb. 1/1: Bottle-O! Collector and Marine Dealers.
1931		Townsville Daily Bull. (Qld) 7 July 11: Spare me days! You could have knocked me down with a wiff out of a dead marine.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 236: An M.T. is an empty bottle, one bearing Moll Thompson’s mark, i.e. M.T., a corpse, dummy, marine-officer, marine, dead-marine or marine recruit, dead recruit, dead ’un.
1941		N.Y. Herald Trib. 29 June 9/2: If the food is all gone, or there’s not a drop in the bottle, the Australian will tell you there’s ‘not a skerek left.’ And the empty bottle’s a ‘dead marine’.
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 152: So they drank, and the dead marines mounted up in the corner.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1968		D. O’Grady A Bottle of Sandwiches 56: I’m dry as last week’s dead marines.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 18: Dead marine: An empty beer bottle, but definitely not an empty aluminium beer can.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] [S]acks of dead marines out for the bottle-o.

see separate entry.

see wait for dead men’s shoes v. (1)

see nail n.¹ (1)

a very stupid person.

1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 125: They were awake and lively; they weren’t deadnecks.
1961		H.C. Woodbridge ‘Miscellany’ in AS XXXVI:3 227: deadneck, n. Dope, an individual who lacks pep or adventurousness.

see separate entry.

(UK black) lifeless.

2020

G. Krauze What They Was 222: Everything around me looks artificial and deadout.

see separate entries.

(US) an impotent old man.

1976

P. Conroy Great Santini (1977) 195: Its great to be here among the Dead Pecker Club again, listening to all the dead peckers mouth off like they still had a little vinegar left in them.

1. (US tramp) one who robs passed-out drunks.

1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 203: Dead picker – A yegg who robs a drunk or dead one.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 22: You crumb-elbowed dead-picker.
c.1951		N. Algren ‘Watch Out for Daddy’ in Entrapment (2009) 142: All she is now is a deadpicker and Enright gets half of what she steals.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 66: dead picker A prostitute who robs drunken patrons; a robber of intoxicated persons.

2. (US) a general term of abuse; thus adj. deadpicking.

1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 92: That crummy deadpicker left the downstairs door open.
1980		N. Algren ‘No More Christmases’ in Entrapment (2009) 262: You scabby dead-picking amateur you.

see pickle n. (3)

1. (US) a guaranteed and absolute failure, often in the context of a forthcoming election.

1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 161: It looked as if Eb would have to be marked up as a Dead Pigeon.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 98: All I know is either you plunk for Merriam around here or you’re a dead pigeon.
1951		M. Shulman Many Loves of Dobie Gillis 77: Unless somebody would start this mob to the sugar bowl, I was a dead pigeon.

2. one who is doomed.

1919		V. Lindsay Golden Whales of Calif. 92: Your Daniel is a dead little pigeon / He’s a good hard worker, but he talks religion.
1943		I. Wolfert Battle for the Solomons 3: A fellow watching muzzle-flashes in the distance and waiting for the roar and smack to tell him whether he’s a dead pigeon.
1954		G. Marx Groucho Letters 59: The male is a dead pigeon.
1966		R. Blesh Keaton 228: Once out the door unarmed and he’s a dead pigeon.
1997		L. Goran She Loved Me Once 131: But if I catch that little bastard he’s a dead pigeon.
2000		A. Herman Joseph McCarthy 299: ‘He’s a dead pigeon.’ In fact, McCarthy’s political demise was not inevitable.

3. one who is unconscious.

1952

B. Appel Plunder (2005) 220: A few more drinks and Tommy would be a dead pigeon.

see pork n. (1c)

(US) a $1 bill; thus in pl. money; thus dommy of the dead, a bank.

1942		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 21 Mar. 16: ‘My ace saw dropped a flock o’ Dead Presidents on me’’.
1944		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 29 Jan. 10A: I could pop back and do a little light planting [i.e. deposit cash] in the dommy of the dead.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 16: The heavy hen was [...] getting ready to lay down a few dead ones on this skull.
1953		L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 6: Understand, I don’t want to knee pad but the score is piling up and its relief I crave. You must believe I could use some extra presidents.
1962		P. Crump Burn, Killer, Burn! 119: For your information, there’s about two hundred dead men in that roll.
1963		Little Walter [song title] ‘Dead Presidents’.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 87: This bitch come over talkin’ about she gon’ choose me. I say, ‘Bitch, what about those dead Presidents?’ She say ‘I got the money, Daddy, I got the money.’.
1987		Eric B & Rakim ‘Paid in Full’ 🎵 How could I get some dead presidents?
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 13: Maurice [...] always kicked the same lousy fifty dead presidents across the bar at closing.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 154: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Funds. Lucci. Cheddar. Duckets. Benjamins. Dead Presidents.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 318: Davey goes like he’ll put up half the dead presidents for the hit.

(US campus) something easy.

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 19: dead pudding. Something easy.

1. (US) a street thug, a hoodlum [the New York City street gang, known as the Dead Rabbits, who would parade brandishing such a corpse, the symbol of their defeated rivals, as their standard].

1857		N.Y. Daily Trib. 14 Sept. 7/2: Juvenile Rioters. -- Two gangs of juvenile rowdies, varying in ages from 8 to 14 years, one boasting in the title of Dead Rabbits, and the other that of the Bowery Boys. . .
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 72: rabbit A rowdy. ‘Dead rabbit,’ a very athletic rowdy fellow.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America II 348: As Mayor of New York he rendered excellent service [...] making his municipality a terror to the ‘shoulder-hitters,’ ‘plug-uglies,’ and ‘dead rabbits’.
1870		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 19 Feb. 212/1: They are far more brutal than the peasantry from whom they descend, and they are much banded together in associations, such as ‘Dead-Rabbit,’ [and] ‘Plug-ugly’.
1880		Congressional Record 12 Apr. 2327/1: We should protect the ballot-box from violence [...] from the ‘short boys’ and ‘dead rabbits,’ of this country [DA].
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

2. a hopeless person, one who has absolutely no chance.

1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ Get Next 100: After he gets to the age of 60 he is a dead rabbit and it’s the woods for his.
1944		C.B. Davis Rebellion of Leo McGuire (1953) 94: I thought we was dead rabbits and no fooling.

3. an impotent penis, incapable of erection.

1966		Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(US black gang) a dead gang member.

1994

G. Smitherman Black Talk.

an empty bottle.

1933

‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 236: An M.T. is an empty bottle, one bearing Moll Thompson’s mark, i.e. M.T., a corpse, dummy, marine-officer, marine, dead-marine or marine recruit, dead recruit, dead ’un.

1. (US) very poor quality or adulterated whisky [it ‘kills’ the drinker].

1859		Dly Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 10 May 1/4: Gentry laid his trouble at the door of ‘dead shot,’ commonly called whiskey.
1860		Fayetteville Obs. (TN) 19 Jan. 2/1: ‘Dead Shot Whiskey’ [...] one pint of such liquor would kill the strongest man.
1877		Phrenological Jrnl & Life Illustrated 64 138/2: These poor fellows (white, as well as black,) may be secured for the ticket which ‘treats’ them on their way to the polls to a drink of ‘dead-shot whiskey.’.

2. (US black) sexual intercourse, whether vaginal or anal.

1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1997		Solar Project ‘Zeitgest’ 🎵 on ...in Time [album] We honk for cookies, we knock it out / We mash the fat, we mess around / Jig-a-jig, rub-a-dub, dead shot, Donald Duck / You wanna feel my Bethlehem steel / Mary Poppins, TNT, Bristol City / I bite into your cats and kitties.

see under soldier n.

(W.I.) a ‘non-event’.

1995

Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 13: Dead-stock not happening; a non-event: u. dead-stock business.

see swag n.¹

1. (N.Z./US prison) time spent serving a sentence.

1967		J. Horton ‘Time and cool people’ in Trans-action 4 8/1: Time is dead when one is in jail.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 53/2: dead time n. time spent in prison, a prison sentence.

2. (US prison/und.) time that lacks any form of diversion.

1967		J. Horton ‘Time and cool people’ in Trans-action 4 8/1: One is ‘doing dead time’ when nothing is happening, and he’s got nothing going for himself.
2005		B. Woodward Secret Man 19: Felt and I were like two passengers sitting next to each other on a long airline flight with [...] nothing really to do but resign ourselves to the dead time.

3. any time spent in prison that does not actually diminish one’s sentence.

1977		B. Jackson Killing Time 178: The three months that I had already did was dead time. They say a man can’t do dead time. Well in Arkansas you can do as much as the courts want you to do.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 132: Time wouldn’t start running till he hit the penitentiary gates. County jail was dead time.

4. any period of one’s prison sentence when one is prohibited from associating with other prisoners.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 25: Dead Time Used to describe the manner in which some inmates in general population serve their prison sentence. Even though they have access to programs and activities, they do not take advantage of these privileges.

a hopeless person, a person or thing that has absolutely no chance.

2002		National Post 5 Dec. 🌐 This thing is a dead turkey. It’s not enough that we have the god-damned health care and Kyoto and now we’ve got this goddamned $700-million on the gun registry.
a.2003		‘Rev. of Austin Powers 3 – Goldmember’ at Fazed.com 🌐 There is no escaping the fact that the plot is a turkey, the script is a dead turkey.

see separate entry.

(US black) a dollar bill of any denomination.

1993

J. Mowry Six Out Seven (1994) 151: Hobbes [...] slapped a tweny on the counter. ‘One dead whiteboy for the black man.’.

see separate entries.

see separate entry.

(Aus./US) desperate for, in great need of.

1895		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 Feb. n.p.: Got a cigar in yer old clothes, matey? / Lor’ blue me if I’m not dead for a smoke.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Dec. 37/1: ‘Martin’s goin’ ter carry a squirt, but he’s dead fur us. Tumble?’ / Dan Hurden nodded.
1925		Black Mask Aug. III 55: You got the mud, Adams? [...] I’m damn near dead for a smoke.
1960		J.D. Macdonald Slam the Big Door (1961) 159: Then you’re dead for sleep. What good are you?

see separate entry.

1. (US campus) to betray.

1896

W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 16: give the dead hand To be treacherous.

2. (US) to grope a woman in a crowd, e.g. on a tube train.

1975

E. Torres Carlito’s Way 140: You riding the subway to work [...] a fine fox has got her back to you; some degenerate will lean over past you and give her the dead hand.

see knock cold under knock v.

(UK milit.) teetotal.

1896		‘Army Slang’ in Regiment 11 Apr. 31/2: A teetotal [soldier] is ‘on the cot,’ ‘on the steady,’ ‘on the tack,’ ‘on the dead,’ or has ‘put the peg in’.
1900		Regiment 27 Jan. 288/1: When a soldier has become a teettaller [...] he is said to be ‘on the tack,’ ‘up the pole,’ or ‘on the dead’.

(orig. Aus.) an expression of extreme dislike.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1353/2: Cockneys, late C.19; in C.20 gen. and widespread’.

(US teen) be quiet!

1954		N.Y. Herald Trib. 28 Feb. 47/3: If they don’t want to reveal their name you might get ‘Joe Slump, the midget,’ or be told to ‘cop a breeze’ (leave), or maybe ‘play dead’ (keep quiet).
1956		C. Himes ‘Naturally, the Negro’ in Coll. Stories 383: [He] told him to play dead, go about as usual, don’t know anything about anything.

(Aus.) a sure winner, also attrib.

1894		Truth (Sydney) 2 Sept. 7/5: His pals put up their ‘thick ’uns’ with a ‘dead cop’ kind of snigger.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 48: To say a horse is a ‘dead cop’ is to mean a sure winner.

(Aus.) a police informer.

1941

K. Tennant Battlers 306: Anyone who voiced his suspicions of the Bower-bird to the authorities would be known as a ‘dead-copper’, more to be avoided than any maniac.

(Aus.) a strong term of abuse.

1999

G. Seal Lingo 119: The even more serious dead cunt, applied to an undesirable, often malevolent, male.

1. an outback drinking saloon.

1894

G. Boothby On the Wallaby 294: These grog shanties, or ‘dead finishes’ as they are often termed, are the curse of the bush. [Ibid.] 296: After a big shearing, [...] everyone with plenty of money to spend, these back country ‘dead finishes’ are nothing more nor less than little hells.

2. (Aus.) the absolute, the complete; the end.

1902		J.H.M. Abbott Tommy Cornstalk 64: As an afterthought, he enjoins upon you the necessity for ‘looking slippery’. Your single swear-word speaks volumes. [...] You will mount and ride again, and above all you will look forward joylessly to a night without food or fire, and an interrupted sleep. This again is the Dead Finish. / There are few colloquialisms more expressive of wearisome disgust, dissatisfaction and discontent than is ‘Dead Finish.’ It is almost synonymous with ‘the Last Straw’.
1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 9 July 17/1: Mungindi is situated on the N.W. border of N.S.W. and is a ‘dead finish.’.
1927		C. Drew ‘Grafter and Goose’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Aug. n.p.: The Grafter swore softly. ‘By cripes, it will be the dead finish if the cow happens to win’.

(20C+ Aus.) an expert.

1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 357: Why We, who’re of the Fancy lay, / As dead hands at a mill as they, [...] Should not be there, to join the chat.
1849		Leics. Mercury 9 June 1/6: Mr Bennett is a dead hand at a bargain.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: A capital rider is Mrs. Byle, and a dead hand at the polka.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 232/1: dead hand – an expert.

an absolute villain.

1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

1. something very unsatisfactory.

1897		Melbourne Punch 25 Feb. 4/4: Ho, this state of matrimunny, it’s a dead nark on a lad, / An’ it’s sobered up a push of chaps I meet.
1904		Truth (Brisbane) 10 Apr. 5/3: Now, this was what was termed a ‘dead nark,’ especially as Christmas Eve was approaching.

2. a spoilsport.

1906

E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 18: Up to yeh, too, fer er dead nark.

3. a very bad temper.

1901

Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Dec. 43/1: Owning a very nasty and soured disposition (bushmen term it ‘a dead nark’) he was continually growling and cursing at everything and everybody.

an unimportant project that turns out to be a failure.

1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(orig. US) a large quantity, many.

1869		‘South-Western Sl.’ in Overland Monthly (CA) Aug. 131: A Texan never has a great quantity of any thing, but he has ‘scads’ of it, or ‘oodles,’ or ‘dead oodles,’ or ‘scadoodles,’ or ‘swads’.
1870		Bolivar Bull. (TN) 26 Feb. 3/1: An ounce of prevention is worth dead oodles of cure.
1883		Sweet & Knox Mexican Mustang 80: When I kem here in '46 thar was dead-oodles of game all around here, — bar, and deer, and wild turkey, and all kinds of varmints.
1893		Kansas Agitator 11 May 1/2: The ‘boys’ have been having dead oodles of fun.
1903		Paducah Sun (KY) 13 Mar. 4/2: Grover Cleveland will stand out conspiciously in the history of the Democratic, while [...] Col. W.J. Bryan will be buried in dead oodles of oblivion.
1883		Sweet & Knox On a Mexican Mustang, Through Texas 100: When I kem here in ’46 thar was dead-oodles of game all around here.
1913		N.-Y. Tribune (Sunday Mag.) 23 Nov. 16/4: He’s a rare old specimen of a gent startin out to make dead oodles of money in commercial pursuits.
1920		Mohave Co. Miner (Kingman, AZ) 16 Oct. 2/1: Canada and Australia have dead oodles of wheat to sell.

see separate entry.

(Aus.) a general term of abuse; also as adj.

1961		Geoff Mill Nobody Dies But Me (2003) 122: And you can tell him if he don’t come up with some cash I’ll trace the deadshit through the Red Cross and leave a little bundle of bloody joy on his doorstep.
1971		A. Buzo Macquarie 58: The revolution, you dead shit.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 29: You’re still a bloody dead-shit.
1982		H. Beaton Outside In Act II: di: We talked, that’s all. ginny: About what? Me? Deadshit me?
1996		K. Lette Mad Cows 140: Do you always behave like such a fucking deadshit when a friend’s in trouble?
2002		S. Maloney Something Fishy (2006) 216: You don’t know the half of it, you dopey deadshit.
2011		Private Eye 7-20 Jan. 26/3: Pity you never bumped into that other deadsshit who dressed up as a big pink prick.
2020		Twitter 25 July 🌐 In breaking news, Vikki Campion outs her husband, the beetrooter as a deadshit dad.

(US) an honest individual.

1893

St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) 3 Dec. 17/7: There are only two terms which describe an honest man; to wit, a ‘dead square’ and ‘dead white’.

(Aus.) a stealer of coats and umbrellas.

1882

Sydney Sl. Dict. 3: Dead Suckers - Stealers of coats and umbrellas.

(US Und.) an obvious give-away, discovery in the act of a crime.

1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 213: It’ll be a dead tumble if we’ve arst the way to the station.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 321: Dead tumble, A discovery or arrest in the act of committing a crime.

see dead square

(Aus./N.Z.) the absolute image of.

1911		E. Dyson ‘On a Bender’ in Benno and Some of the Push 74: Benno’s shape was the dead ring iv that iv Griffo.
1924		G.H. Lawson Dict. of Aus. Words And Terms 🌐 RING, THE DEAD—Similar; a likeness.
1948		D. Ballantyne Cunninghams (1986) 72: Bob said they were the dead ring of Gil, especially Gilbert. The kids looked embarrased.
1951		D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 177: He was the dead ring of me.
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 [...] dead ring of ‘dead spit of’.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 35/1: dead ring exact likeness.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

1. (US) unarguably, without escape.

1897

Times-Democrat (New orleans, LA) 14 Mar. 25/6: ‘Mimosa, I’se got you on de dead level; I seed you [...] wid a feller wid a black moustache’.

2. in earnest, sincerely, straightforwardly, honestly.

1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 72: ‘You really believe that?’ ‘On the dead level.’.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 30: Aw, them skoits is dopes, on the dead level.
1920		‘The Cowboy and the Maid’ in J.A. Lomax Songs of the Cattle Trail 39: Fifty head ’o cows, and not / One of ’em, on the dead, / Is a crackin’ thoroughbred.