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View synonyms for dead weight

dead weight

or deadweight

noun

  1. the heavy, unrelieved weight of anything inert:

    The dead weight of the bear's body was over 300 pounds.

  2. a heavy or oppressive burden or responsibility.
  3. the weight of a railroad car, truck, etc., as distinct from its load or contents.


dead weight

noun

  1. a heavy weight or load
  2. an oppressive burden; encumbrance
  3. the difference between the loaded and the unloaded weights of a ship
  4. another name for dead load
  5. (in shipping) freight chargeable by weight rather than by bulk
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of dead weight1

First recorded in 1650–60
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Idioms and Phrases

A heavy or oppressive burden, as in That police record will be a dead weight on his career . This term alludes to the unrelieved weight of an inert mass. [Early 1700s]
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Example Sentences

The text of the measure was unenforceable, but the dead words remained in the California Constitution, a dead weight on our collective conscience.

“Every single person who saw Joe Biden knew that he wasn’t capable of doing the job. And for three years, they said nothing until he became political dead weight.”

From Salon

Now he had been deemed dead weight in Italy, too.

It felt like the old donkey had gone slack and left the entirety of his dead weight for me to drag.

That’s because when he was in contact with the rock his legs were worse than dead weight.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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