Heading
innumerable bodies, brick-bat laden, of purrless, soul-less dead-as-door-nail cats. Poor pussies.
1878. Besant and Rice, By Celia's Arbour, ch. xlviii. Quite dead he was, DEAD AS A DOOR-NAIL.
In dead earnest, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Without doubt; in very truth.
1880. E. Bellamy, Dr. Heidenhoff's Process, p. 11. I am sure that you never had a more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was.
Dead Against, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Decidedly opposed to.
1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, I S., ch. vii. You know I was always dead agin your tariff bill.
Dead-Alive or Dead-and-Alive, adj. (colloquial).—Dull; stupid; mopish; formerly deadly-lively.
1884. H. D. Traill, in Eng. Ill. 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.
Dead-Amiss, adv. phr. (turf).—Incapacitated through illness from competing in a race; said of horses.
Dead-Beat, subs. (American).—1. A sponger; loafer; sharper. Cf., Dead-head and Beat, subs., sense 1.
1865. Glasgow Herald, 25 Dec. 'Trial Swanborough v. Sotheran.' I returned the whole of the receipts, and about £4 16s. for dead beats—free admissions who took advantage of the occasion and got paid—which caused great discontent.
1884. S. L. Clemens ('Mark Twain'), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, p. 284. These uncles of your'n ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of frauds—regular dead-beats.
1888. Bulletin, 24 Nov. All the dead-beats and suspected hen-snatchers plead when before the Bench that they were 'only mouching round to find out whether the family neglected its religious dooties, yer washup.
2. (American).—A pick-me-up compounded of ginger, soda, and whiskey.
Verb (American).—To sponge; loaf; cheat. Cf., Beat, verb, and Dead-head.
1880. Boston Journal. No party can dead-beat his way on me these hard times.
Adj.—Exhausted; e.g., Billy romped in as 'fresh as paint, but the rest were dead-beat.
1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry [ed. 1890], p. 34. Logic was at length not only so dead-beat, as to be compelled to cry for quarter, but to seek a temporary retirement, in order to renovate his constitution.
Dead Broke, adv. phr. (general).—Utterly penniless; ruined. Also Flat or stone broke; used verbally, to dead-break.
1866. Cincinnatti Enquirer, 1 June. When he left the gambling-house, he was observed to turn toward a friend with the words, dead-broke! and then to disappear round the corner.
English Synonyms. Wound up; settled; coopered; smashed up; under a cloud; cleaned out; cracked up; done up; on one's back; floored; on one's beam ends; gone to pot; broken-backed; all U. P.; in the wrong box; stumped; feathered; squeezed; dry; gutted; burnt one's fingers; dished; in a bad way; gone up; gone by the board; made mince meat of; broziered; willowed; not to have a feather to fly with; burst; fleeced; stony; pebble-beached; in Queer Street; stripped; rooked; hard up; broke; hooped-up; strapped; gruelled.
French Synonyms. Enfoncé familiar: also—done brown);
