Heading
centré (popular); désossé (popular: properly = boned); eréné (popular); atigé (thieves'); panné (= in QueerStreet); see also Beat.
Italian Synonym.—Ferrare (to be ruined; also = to spoil or corrupt).
Dead-Cargo, subs. (thieves').—Booty
of a disappointing character.
Dead Certainty, subs. phr. (colloquial).—That
which is sure to
occur; usually contracted to Dead
or Cert, both of which see.
18(?). Aytoun. The Dreepdaily Burghs, p. 4. Everybody is realising; the banks won't discount; and when your bills become due, they will be, to a dead certainty, protested.
Dead cut.—See Cut.
Dead Duck, subs. phr. (American).—That
which has depreciated
to the verge of worthlessness.
1888. New York Clipper. Long Branch is said to be a dead duck. But for the investments made at Elberon the Branch proper would probably have been abandoned long ago.
Deader, subs. (military).—1. A funeral;
a black-job (q.v.).
2. (common).—A corpse.
Dead Frost, subs. (theatrical).—A
fiasco; a columbus (q.v.).
Fr., un four noir.
Dead-Give-Away.—See Give
dead-away.
Dead Gone, adv. phr. (colloquial).
Utterly collapsed.
Dead-Head, Dead-Beat or Dead-Hand,
subs. (American).—One
who obtains something of commercial
value without special payment
or charge; a person who
travels by rail, visits theatres,
etc., by means of free passes
(cf., Paper); a sponge (q.v.).
Also a loafing sharper.—See Beat
and Dead-beat.
1861. Morning Post, 'New York Correspondence.' The editor had evidently been travelling as a dead-hand, as it is called, and paid his bill by a laudatory notice.
1871. De Vere, Americanisms. The dead-head receives his newspapers without subscribing, travels free of charge on steamboat, railroad, and stage, walks into theatres and shows of every kind unmolested, and even drinks at the bar and lives at the hotel without charge.
1883. Daily Telegraph. 21 May, p. 3, col. 1. 'Lucia di Lammermoor' is stale enough to warrant the most confirmed deadhead in declining to help make a house.
Also to dead-head, dead-*headism, etc.
1871. New York Tribune, March. Elder Knapp, the noted revivalist, advertised that he would furnish a free pass to glory, but very few of the unrighteous population seemed anxious to be dead-headed on this train.
1888. Portland Transcript, 14 March. Unless we count those which had to do with the stage business and went dead-*head.
Dead-Heat, subs. (colloquial).—A
race with an equal finish. Formerly
dead.
1635. Quarles, Emblems, Epig. 10. Mammon well follow'd, Cupid bravely led; Both touchers; equal fortune makes a dead; No reed can measure where the conquest lies; Take my advice; compound, and share the prize.
1828-45. T. Hood, Poems, vol. I., p. 170 (ed. 1846). Away! Away! she could ride a dead heat With the Dead who rides so fast and fleet.
1884. Ill. London News, 18 Oct., p. 362, col. 3. St. Gatien, the horse that ran a dead-heat for the Derby.
