Dead definition

Dead as an adjective

1. no longer having or seeming to have or expecting to have life

   "the nerve is dead"

2. not showing characteristics of life especially the capacity to sustain life; no longer exerting force or having energy or heat

   "Mars is a dead planet"

3. very tired

   "I'm dead after that long trip"

   Same sense: all in, beat, bushed

4. unerringly accurate

   "a dead shot"

5. physically inactive

   "Crater Lake is in the crater of a dead volcano of the Cascade Range"

6. (followed by ‘to’) not showing human feeling or sensitivity; unresponsive

   "passersby were dead to our plea for help"

   Same sense: numb

7. devoid of physical sensation; numb

   "his gums were dead from the novocain"

   Same sense: deadened

8. lacking acoustic resonance

   "dead sounds characteristic of some compact discs"

9. not yielding a return

   "dead capital"

   Same sense: idle

10. not circulating or flowing

    "dead air"

    Same sense: stagnant

11. not surviving in active use

    "Latin is a dead language"

12. lacking resilience or bounce

    "a dead tennis ball"

13. out of use or operation because of a fault or breakdown

    "a dead telephone line"

14. no longer having force or relevance

    "a dead issue"

15. the complete stoppage of an action

    "came to a dead stop"

16. drained of electric charge; discharged

    "a dead battery"

    Same sense: drained

17. devoid of activity

    "this is a dead town: nothing ever happens here"

Dead as a noun

18. people who are no longer living

    "they buried the dead"

19. a time when coldness (or some other quality associated with death) is intense

    "the dead of winter"

Dead as an adverb

20. completely and without qualification; used informally as intensifiers

    "you can be dead sure of my innocence"

    Same sense: absolutely, perfectly, utterly

21. quickly and without warning

    Same sense: short, suddenly, all of a sudden, of a sudden, abruptly

Synonyms and antonyms

• all in
• beat
• bushed
• numb
• deadened
• idle
• stagnant
• drained
• absolutely
• perfectly
• utterly
• short definition
• suddenly
• all of a sudden
• of a sudden
• abruptly

Opposites: alive, live, living.

How to say dead

Dead has 1 syllable and rhymes with said. Syllable counts and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary.

Words that rhyme with dead

• said
• read
• head
• red
• instead
• lead
• led
• bed
• ahead
• spread
• ed
• fed

DEAD in word games

Scrabble

6

Words With Friends

6

Anagrams

0

Is DEAD a valid Scrabble word? Yes, it is in the ENABLE list most word games use. Check DEAD in the word checker, or unscramble DEAD to see the shorter words in its letters.