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.
Dead-Horse, subs. (common).—1. Work, the wages for which have been paid
in advance; by implication, distasteful, or thankless labor. Fr., la
bijouterie. To pull the dead horse = to work for wages already paid.
[Seamen, on signing articles, sometimes get pay in advance, and they
celebrate the term of the period thus paid for by dragging a canvas
horse, stuffed with straw, round the deck and dropping him into the sea
amidst cheers.] Fr., manger du salé (to eat salt pork.)
1651. Cartwright, Siedge. Ply. Now you’l wish I know, you ne’r
might wear Foul linnen more, never be lowzy agen, Nor ly perdue
with the fat sutler’s wife In the provoking vertue of dead horse,
Your dear delights, and rare camp pleasures.
1669. Nicker Nicked, in Harl. Misc. (ed. Park), ii., 110. Sir
Humphry Foster had lost the greatest part of his estate, and then
(playing, as it is said, for a dead horse) did, by happy fortune,
recover it again.
1824. T. Fielding, Proverbs, etc. (Familiar Phrases), p. 148, s.v.
1857. Notes and Queries, 2 S., iv., p. 192. A workman ‘horses’ it
when he charges for more in his week’s work than he has really
done. Of course he has so much unprofitable work to get through in
the ensuing week, which is called dead horse.
2. (West Indian).—A shooting star. Among Jamaican negroes the spirits
of horses that have fallen over precipices are thought to re-appear in
this form.
To flog the dead horse, verb. phr. (common).—To work to no purpose; to
dissipate one’s energy in vain; to make ‘much ado about nothing.’
1872. Globe, 1 Aug. ‘In the House,’ For full twenty minutes by the
clock the Premier ... might be said to have rehearsed that
particularly lively operation known as flogging a dead horse.
Dead-Letter, subs. (colloquial).—Anything that has lost its force or
authority by lapse of time or other causes.
1755. Fielding, Voyage to Lisbon, p. 145. And to enact laws without
doing this, is to fill our statute-books, much too full already,
still fuller with dead letter, of no use but to the printer of the
Acts of Parliament.
1859. Sala, Gaslight and Daylight, ch. xxi. The Metropolitan
Buildings’ Act is a dead letter in Tattyboys Rents, for nobody ever
thinks of building.
1861. Chambers’ Encyclopædia, s.v. Bunkum. Many laws, agitated for
by popular factions, remain a dead letter, unless they happen to be
enforced by clubs organized for the purpose.
Deadlights, subs. (nautical).—The eyes. For synonyms, see Glims.
Dead Lurk, subs. (thieves’).—See quot.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. i., p. 403. The
dead lurk, for instance, is the expressive slang phrase for the art
of entering dwelling-houses during divine service.
Deadly, adv. (colloquial).—Very; extremely; excessively. In Arbuthnot:
‘So deadly cunning a man.’
Deadly Lively, adv. phr. (common).—Jovial against the grain and to no
purpose.
Deadly Nevergreen, subs. phr. (old).—The gallows. Also known as the
leafless tree and the tree that bears fruit all the year round. For
synonyms, see Nubbing Cheat.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue s.v.
Dead Man, subs. phr. (common).—1. An empty bottle: said also to bear
Moll Thompson’s mark (i.e. M.T. = empty).
English Synonyms.—Camp-candlestick; fellow-commoner; corpse; dummy;
dead marine; dead recruit; dead ’un.
French Synonyms.—Une fillette (= a half-bottle); un corps mort
(popular: literally, a corpse); une négresse morte (popular: a
reference to color as well as condition).
1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial. 2. Ld. S. Come, John, bring us
a fresh bottle. Col. Ay, my lord; and pray, let him carry off the
dead men, as we say in the army [meaning the empty bottles].
1825. The English Spy, vol I., p. 152. On the right was the
sleeping room and at the foot of a neat French bed, I could
perceive the wine bin, surrounded by a regiment of dead men (empty
bottles).
1853. Rev. E. Bradley (‘Cuthbert Bede’), Verdant Green, pt. I., p.
59. Talk of the pleasures of the dead languages, indeed! why, how
many jolly nights have you, and I, Larkyns passed ‘down among the
dead men.’
1871. London Figaro, 15 April. We knew that, in practical use,
imperials were inconvenient and wasteful; and that, moreover, it
was far from easy to dispose of their corpses when they became dead
men.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, ch. viii. And added more dead men to the
formidable corps of tall hock bottles, which the astonished butler
ranged rank and file in a lobby outside the dining room.
1888. E. Zola. Translation of L’Assommoir, ch. vii., p. 208. In a
corner of the shop, the heap of dead men increased, a cemetery of
bottles.
2. (bakers’).—A loaf, overcharged, or marked down though not delivered.
In London, dead ’un is a popular term for a half-quartern loaf. Also,
by implication, a baker.
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 16. Dead men are bakers, so
called from the loaves falsely charged to their master’s customers.