Having ceased to live; being deprived of life, as an animal or vegetable organism; in that state in which all the functions of life or vital powers have ceased to act; lifeless.Hence Having ceased from action or activity; deprived of animating or moving force; brought to a stop or cessation, final or temporary: as, dead machinery; dead affections.Not endowed with life; destitute of life; inanimate: as, dead matter.Void of sensation or perception; insensible; numb: as, he was dead with sleep; dead to all sense of shame.Having the appearance of being lifeless, as in a swoon.Resembling death; still; motionless; deep: as, a dead sleep; a dead calm.Utter; entire; complete; full: as, a dead stop.Unvarying; unbroken by projections or irregularities.Unemployed; useless; unprofitable: as, dead capital or stock (such as produces no profit).Dull; inactive: as, a dead market.Producing no reverberation; without resonance; dull; heavy: as, a dead sound.Tasteless; vapid; spiritless; flat: said of liquors.Without spiritual life: as, dead works; dead faith.Fixed; sure; unerring: as, a dead certainty.Being in the state of civil death; cut off from the rights of a citizen; deprived of the power of enjoying the rights of property, as one sentenced to imprisonment for life for crime, or, formerly, one who was banished or became a monk.Not communicating motion or power: as, dead steam; the dead spindle of a lathe.Not glossy or brilliant: said of a color or a surface.Out of the game; out of play: said of a ball or a player: as, a dead ball; he is dead.A law, ordinance, or legal instrument which, through long-continued and uninterrupted disuse or disregard, has lost its actual although not its formal authority.Nautical, an old name for the reef- or gasket-ends carelessly left dangling under the yard when the sail is furled, instead of being tucked in.n. The culminating point, as of the cold of winter, or of the darkness or stillness of the night.n. plural Material thrown out in digging; specifically, in mining, worthless rock; attle: same as gob in coal-mining. Also (dialectal) deeds.—n. [Prop. a var. of death; cf. deadly = deathly, dead-day = death-day, etc.] Death.n. A complete failure in recitation.To become dead; lose life or force.To make a complete failure in recitation.To make dead; deprive of life, consciousness, force, or vigor; dull; deaden.To cause to fail in recitation: said of a teacher who puzzles a scholar.In a dead or dull manner.To a degree approaching death; deathly; to the last degree: as, to be dead sleepy; he was dead drunk.Entirely; completely: as, he was dead sure that he was right.Directly; exactly; diametrically: as, the wind was dead ahead.In golf, said of a ball: when it falls without rolling;when it lies so near a hole that the player is “dead sure” to hole it;when it lacks life or resiliency.In electricity, said of a circuit which is not connected with any source of electric power, either directly, or indirectly, as by induction.Said of molten metal when it is thick and sluggish, either from insufficient melting, or from having stood too long in a ladle.
