Heading
Your own great Union's stout defender Should deacon off the craven crew, Who here are clamouring for surrender.
Deacon-Seat, subs. (American
lumberers').—In log cabins the
sleeping apartment is partitioned
off by poles. The bed is mother
earth, the pillow is a log, the
foot-board a long pole six feet
from the fire and in the centre of
the cabin. The deacon seat is
a plank fixed over and running
parallel with the footboard so
as to form a kind of settee
in front of the fire. [Probably in
allusion to the seats round a
pulpit, facing the congregation,
reserved for deacons.]
Deacon's Hiding Place, subs. phr.
(American).—A private compartment
in oyster saloons and cafés;
the Fr. cabinet particulier.
Dead, subs. (turf).—An abbreviation
of 'dead certainty.'—See
Cert.
1889. Bailey's Magazine [quoted in S. J. & C.]. 'Dealers in the dead' did well then.
Adj. (various).—Stagnant; 'quiet' (of trade); 'flat' (as of beer or aërated waters after exposure); cold (Am., see quot., 1888); good; thorough; complete (Cf., subs., sense). Also as an adv. as in dead beat, dead best, dead drunk, dead rolled (or flummoxed), dead nuts, dead bitched, etc.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, ii., 2. Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead-drunk.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress, p. 36. As dead hands at a mill as they, and quite as ready after it.
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xvii., p. 187. 'I wish you would pull off my boots for me,' said Martin, dropping into one of the chairs, 'I am quite knocked up. Dead beat, Mark.'
1845. Punch, vol. IX., p. 163. The general opinion is that the Premier is dead beat.
1860. Punch, vol. XXXIX., p. 37. A dead take-in is swipes too thin.
1864. Punch. Veal is as dead as mutton.
1872. Derby Mercury, 1 May. 'Freemasonry in New Zealand.' He was not dead, but only dead drunk.
1884. W. C. Russell, Jack's Courtship, ch. vii. So surely do I intend to try my dead best—all that I know—to win Florence's love and possess her as a wife.
1888. Puck's Library, May, p. 27. Hungry Guest. Please bring me some clam fritters. Count (in disguise). Live 'r dead? Hungry Guest. Why, dead, of course! (And he got them stone-cold.)
Dead as a door-nail, mutton, a herring, a tent-peg, Julius Cæsar, etc., adv. phr. (common).—Utterly, completely dead. Dead as a door-nail is found in Langland's Piers Plowman [1362]; all other forms are modern. [The door-nail is the striking-plate of the knocker. Herrings die sooner after capture than most fish.]
1593. G. Harvey, Pierces Super., in wks. II., 71. If you will needes strike it as dead as a dore naile.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, in wks. III., 182. Wee'l strike it as dead as a doore-naile.
1598. Shakspeare, II. King Henry IV., iii. Falstaff. What! is the old king dead? Pistol. As nail in door.
1608. Armin, Nest of Ninnies. But now the thought of the new come foole so much moved him, that he was as dead as a doore-nayle, standing on tip-toe, looking toward the door to behold arivall.
1700. Farquhar, Constant Couple, Act iv., Sc. 1. He's as dead as a door-nail; for I gave him seven knocks on the head with a hammer.
1790. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso, Ay, dead as herrings—herrings that are red.
1843. C. Dickens, Christmas Carol, s.v.
1864. D. W. Thompson, Daydreams of a Schoolmaster, p. 230. The boat of Charon will push a difficult furrow through
