1. Not alive; no seeming to have or expecting to have life
   "he was marked as a dead man by the assassin"; "the nerve is dead"; "a dead pallor"
    
2. Not showing characteristics of life especially the capacity to sustain life; no longer exerting force or having energy or heat
   "dead coals"; "the fire is dead"; "Mars is a dead planet"; "dead soil"
    
3. Physically inactive
   "Crater Lake is in the crater of a dead volcano of the Cascade Range"
    
4. Devoid of activity
   "this is a dead town: nothing ever happens here"
    
5. [informal] Very tired
   "I'm dead after that long trip";
   - all in, beat [informal], bushed
    
6. (followed by ‘to’) not showing human feeling or sensitivity; unresponsive
   "passersby were dead to our plea for help";
   - numb
    
7. Devoid of physical sensation; numb
   "his gums were dead from the novocain";
   - deadened
    
8. Out of use or operation because of a fault or breakdown
   "a dead telephone line"; "the motor is dead"
    
9. No longer having force or relevance
   "a dead issue"
    
10. Not circulating or flowing
    "dead air"; "dead water";
    - stagnant
     
11. Lacking acoustic resonance
    "dead sounds characteristic of some compact discs"; "the dead wall surfaces of a recording studio"
     
12. Not yielding a return
    "dead capital";
    - idle
     
13. Not surviving in active use
    "Latin is a dead language"
     
14. Lacking resilience or bounce
    "a dead tennis ball"
     
15. The complete stoppage of an action
    "came to a dead stop"
     
16. Drained of electric charge; discharged
    "a dead battery";
    - drained, flat [Brit]
     
17. Unerringly accurate
    "a dead shot"; "took dead aim"

1. People who are no longer living
   "they buried the dead"
    
2. A time when coldness (or some other quality associated with death) is intense
   "the dead of winter"

1. Completely and without qualification; used informally as an intensifier
   "you can be dead sure of my innocence"; "was dead tired"; "dead right";
   - absolutely, perfectly, utterly
    
2. Quickly and without warning
   "he stopped dead";
   - suddenly, all of a sudden, on the spur of the moment, of a sudden, abruptly, short

Derived forms: deadest, deader, deads

See also: aliveness, animation, asleep, assassinated, at peace, at rest, bloodless, brain dead, breathless, cold, complete, d.o.a., deathlike, deathly, deceased, defunct, departed, doomed, exanimate, executed, exsanguine, exsanguinous, extinct, fallen, gone, inactive, inanimate, inelastic, inoperative, insensitive, late, life, lifeless, living, murdered, noncurrent, nonextant, nonresonant, nonviable, out, out of play, precise, pulseless, slain [literary], standing, stillborn, stone-dead, tired, uncharged, unprofitable, unreverberant, vitality

Type of: people, time

Antonym: alive, live, living

Encyclopedia: Dead, Hot And Ready