Definition of "dead"

Timothy Leary's dead. / No, no no no, he's outside, looking in.

1968, Ray Thomas, "Legend of a Mind", The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord.

Behold the substance from which all things draw their energy, the bright Spirit of the Globe, without which it cannot live, but must grow cold and dead as the dead moon.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887

Was it possible to exist upon a dead world?

1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton

When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.

1600, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act III, scene 3

You're dead. A million and one thoughts pounded her at once. But one overpowered all the others. This time you're dead.

2009, Noel Hynd, Midnight in Madrid‎

He stopped, took a swig of the dead champagne. It was like 7-Up.

1969 March 31, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five […] (A Seymour Lawrence Book), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, page 65

Then shall the Times that were be Times no more; and it may be that the old, dead days shall return from beyond the Rim, and we who have wept for them shall see those days again, as one who, returning from long travel to his home, comes suddenly on dear, remembered things.

1905, [Edward Plunkett,] Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna‎, London: Elkin Mathews, […], page 40

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

1984, William Gibson, chapter 1, in Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, page 3

Joker: Everything cuts out after that. No comm traffic at all. Just goes dead. There's nothing.

2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, PC, scene: Normandy SR-1

No mark of any kind should ever be made on a dead manuscript.

1984, Winston Smock, Technical Writing for Beginners, page 148

In this paper, we survey the set of techniques found in the wild that are intended to prevent data-scrubbing operations from being removed during dead store elimination.

2017, Zhaomo Yang, Brian Johannesmeyer, Dead Store Elimination (Still) Considered Harmful

You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.

c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene vii]

He was dead to the law. Whatever account others might make of it, yet, for his part, he was dead to it. […] But though he was thus dead to the law, yet he […] was far from thinking himself discharged from his duty to God' on the contrary, he was dead to the law, that he might live unto God.

1839, William Jenks, The Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible: Acts-Revelation, page 361

But he died to the guilt of sin—to the guilt of his people's sins which he had taken upon him; and they, dying with him, as is above declared, die to sin precisely in the same sense in which he died to it. […] He was not justified from it till his resurrection, but from that moment he was dead to it. When he shall appear the second time, it will be "without sin."

1849, Robert Haldane, Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, page 255

[…] syllable is dead, the tone will depend on whether the vowel is short or long.

2011, Russ Crowley, Learning Thai, Your Great Adventure, page 28

Independent tests later confirmed [the figures] to be accurate, with Car & Driver seeing 159mph (254kph), 0.60 in five seconds dead, and an amazingly high 0.97g.

2003 December 1, Brian Long, RX-7 Mazda’s Rotary Engine Sports Car: Updated & Enlarged Edition, Veloce Publishing Ltd, page 145

And because the tunnel is dead straight, it's perfect for reaching high speeds.

2023 November 29, Peter Plisner, “The winds of change in Catesby Tunnel”, in RAIL, number 997, page 56

I knew once a Scotch sailmaker who was certain, dead sure, there were people in Mars.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 216

I was tired of reading, and dead sleepy.

1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850

“What a man should do, when finds his natural impotency dead him in spiritual works”

1826, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Edward Reynolds, Lord Bishop of Norwich, collected by Edward Reynolds, Benedict Riveley, and Alexander Chalmers. pp. 227. London: B. Holdsworth.

Heaven's stern decree, / With many an ill, hath numb'd and deaded me.

1614–1615, Homer, “(please specify the book number)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volumes (please specify the book number), London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857,

This dude at the club was trying to kill us so I deaded him, and then I had to collect from Spice.

2006, Leighanne Boyd, Once Upon A Time In The Bricks, page 178

“What, you was just gonna dead him because if that's the case then why the fuck we getting the money?” Sha asked annoyed.

2008, Marvlous Harrison, The Coalition, page 106

TOMMY:”Honestly, I’d love to help you with that but I’ve got a surplus of motherfuckers that I need to dead right now.”

2020 January 6, Courtney A. Kemp, Matt K. Turner, 33:48 from the start, in Power, season 6, episode 11, spoken by Tommy Egan (E Joseph Sikora)